The City Walls of Utrecht by the "Plompetoren"

Prints and Drawings

1763

Paulus van Liender
Dutch, 1731-1797

Delicately and fastidiously wrought, this view of the bend in a canal documents a specific place and time. Liender, who preferred topographical and architectural subjects throughout his career, drew this view of the Utrecht city walls with the Plompetoren (Hulking Tower) on several occasions. The knife-edge precision in varying the saturation of the ink and wash helps create the illusion of the glassy surface of the canal at the lower center of this drawing. Despite the care with which the structures and foliage are depicted, more than half of the drawn sheet is devoted to an ethereal description of light and air.

Status: Currently Off View
Department: Prints and Drawings

Artist: Paul Liender
Title: The City Walls of Utrecht by the "Plompetoren"
Place: Netherlands (Artist's nationality:)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: 1763
Medium: Pen and black ink, with brush and gray wash, on ivory laid paper
Inscriptions: Signed and dated recto, lower left, in pen and black ink: "Paul: v: Liender fac: 1763"; inscribed verso, lower center, in pen and brown ink: "de Plompetooren te Utrecht, N. 55"
Dimensions: 21.4 × 32.5 cm (8 7/16 × 12 13/16 in.)
Credit Line: Gift of Dorothy Braude Edinburg to the Harry B. and Bessie K. Braude Memorial Collection
Reference Number: 2013.971
IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world. Learn more.: https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/142569/manifest.json

Art Institute of Chicago, Gifts of a Lifetime: 49 Old Masters Drawings from the Dorothy Braude Edinburg Collection, Dec. 11,1998–Mar. 28,1999, checklist 35.
Art Institute of Chicago, Drawings in Dialogue: Old Master Through Modern, The Harry B. and Bessie K. Braude Memorial Collection, June 3–July 30, 2006, p. 51, cat. 24 (ill.).
Art Institute of Chicago, The Thrill of the Chase: Drawings for the Harry B. and Bessie K. Braude Memorial Collection, Mar. 15–June 15, 2014.
The Art Institute of Chicago, “Rubens, Rembrandt, and Drawing in the Golden Age”, September 28, 2019 - January 5, 2020, pp. 264, 267 (ill.), 305, 333, (ill.), cat. 110, cat. by Victoria Sancho Lobis, et. al.

Pieter Langerhuizen Lzn., (1839–1918), Crainloo, Holland [stamp (Lugt 2095), verso, lower left, in blue]; sold, Frederick Muller, Amsterdam, April 29–May 1, 1919, lot 489. Sold, Sotheby’s, New York, Jan. 9, 1996, lot 187, to Dorothy Braude Edinburg, Brookline, Mass.; given to the Art Institute of Chicago, 2013.

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Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

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IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world. Learn more.

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IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world.

Learn more.