A View of the Nieuwe Kerk, Delft

1793

Johannes Huibert Prins

(Dutch, 1757–1806)

Culture

Netherlands

Medium

Brush, point of brush and brown ink and wash with traces of graphite on cream medium-weight wove paper

Measurements

Image and Sheet: 29.8 x 32.8 cm (11 3/4 x 12 15/16 in.)

Credit Line

Nancy F. and Joseph P. Keithley Collection Gift 2020.141

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Location

Not on view

Did You Know?

On the bridge a laborer pushes a heavy parcel on a wheelbarrow aided by a woman who pushes him from behind.

Description

Johannes Huibert Prins made small-scale works on paper such as this drawing featuring scenes of Dutch cities and the people who inhabited them going about their everyday lives. In this drawing, the large Nieuwe Kerk (New Church) in the city of Delft is shown from the side, while a matron fills a bucket for washing from the canal and laborers and other urban inhabitants cross the bridge beyond. Prins's technique, based on that of the artist Jan van der Heyden who worked about 100 years earlier, relied on minute detail—down to the mortar between each brick—achieved with astounding control of the ink and wash.