graphite, pen and brown ink, grey wash, pen and brown ink framing lines, countermark IV (Jean Villedray)
inscribed ‘Poort tot hanau’ (recto) and with number ‘2348.’ (verso)
18.5 x 32 cm

Provenance:
Onno van Seggelen Fine Arts, Rotterdam;
Private Collection, The Netherlands.

Literature:
C. Dumas, ‘Aan Abraham Rademaker toe te schrijven tekeningen in een voor de kunstenaar nogal ongebruikelijke stijl’, in 'Connoisseurship. Essays in Honour of Fred G. Meijer', Leiden, 2020, pp. 107-108, fig. 36.

Abraham Rademaker is primarily known for his 300 engravings in the Kabinet van Nederlandsche outheden en gezichten, first published in Amsterdam in 1725 and re-published numerous times after. Besides the designs for this major publication, Rademaker left a large drawn oeuvre (which totals more than 1000 sheets) which can roughly be divided in three groups; the drawings for the Kabinet […], drawings of significant buildings executed with the point of the brush and brown ink that were primarily executed after earlier examples and highly finished drawings in gouache showing Dutch and fantastical landscapes. There are furthermore a number of sub categories which have been discussed in great detail recently by Charles Dumas.[1]
Only recently, Dumas has ‘discovered’ a comparatively small group of drawings which are executed in a so-called ‘meticulous style’ showing topographical views in which brown ink is used to render the architecture and grey wash to shadows, clouds and water. According to Dumas, these sheets could possibly be dated around 1715-1718. These drawings show foreign places and as Rademaker never travelled far over the German border, they must have been executed after prints, drawings or paintings by other masters. The present sheet, in which some graphite underdrawing is still visible, Rademaker depicts Mühltor (milltower) of Hanau, the city’s wall and some of its buildings. As with the other drawings from the group, Charles Dumas has suggested that this drawing was inspired by an engraving by Matthäus Merian the Elder (1593-1650).