After the French had taken Grave, the Netherlandish army reconquered the small town in 1674, but it was severely bombarded during a long siege. The military engineer and amateur artist Valentijn Klotz recorded the destruction in a number of drawings. Here the heavily damaged church of St Elizabeth forms the backdrop for a field of anonymous cubic houses delineated with a nervous pen. The planes of grey and blue washes set against the luminous paper lend the composition a modern appearance.

The town of Grave was besieged by the Dutch from 25 July - 27 October 1674, surrendering finally to Prince Willem III of Orange. Klotz, a military engineer in the Dutch army, drew the town after the siege at least 18 times, with two other drawings made on the same day as this sheet - 2nd March 1675 (Rijksmuseum RP-T-00-172 and another in Brussels). Entry from Connecting Worlds: artists & travel, exh. cat., Kupferstich-Kabinett, Dresden, 2023: Starting from the late 166os, Valentin Klotz created numerous vedute of Dutch cities. Together with the artists Josua de Grave (1643-1712) and Bernardus Klotz, he accompanied William III of Orange (1650-1702), governor of the Netherlands, on his campaigns, producing views rich in detail. Often inscribed with location and date, Klotz's drawings prove his documentary interest and help reconstruct the whereabouts of the amateur artist, who was an engineer in the service of William III. In 1675, he arrived in Grave, located in Staats-Brabant (today part of the province Noord-Brabant in the Netherlands). After the end of the occupation by French soldiers during the Dutch-French War (1672-1678), the town had come under the control of William III. Following the withdrawal of the French troops, Klotz was confronted with a devastating sight of destruction. This drawing, made with a quick hand, documents the houses in ruins. The church of St Elizabeth, which towers over them, was also badly damaged and most of its steeple collapsed. By focusing on the destroyed buildings, the drawing poignantly conveys the atmosphere of an abandoned place, devoid of life, capturing in a very matter-of-fact way the consequences of war. Klotz's detailed town views are based on his own observations and may have been useful from a military and engineering point of view. For posterity, they constitute vivid contemporary documents. (entry author: Christian Klose)

Neville Davis Goldsmid, The Hague (1814-1875), L.1962; his sale, Clement (Paris), 25 - 27 April 1876, lot 35 (with one other, now in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge); anonymous sale, Christie's (London), 3 March 1924, lot 2; purchased there by Sir Robert Witt, London (1872-1952), L.2228b (£4.2); Witt Bequest 1952

Connecting Worlds: Artists and Travel, Kupferstich-Kabinett, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden, 07/07/2023-08/10/2023

Drawings Gallery Display - Unseen, The Courtauld Gallery, London, 15/01/2015-29/03/2015

Landscapes in the Making: Dutch & Flemish 16-17th Century Drawings from the Courtauld Gallery, Tobu Museum of Arts, Tokyo, 03/11/2000-24/12/2000; Shizuoka Prefectural Museum of Art, Shizuoka, 02/02/2001-11/03/2001; Koriyama City Museum of Art, Koriyama, 17/03/2001-15/04/2001 ...More

The Northern Landscape: Flemish, Dutch and British Drawings from the Courtauld Collections, Courtauld Gallery, London, 1986
cat. no. 48
Illus. p. 121

Hasselt, R.J. van, 'Drie tekenaars van topografische prenten in Brabant en elders: Valentijn Klotz, Josua de Grave en Constantijn Huygens Jr.' in 'Jaarboek Oudheidkundige Kring de Ghulden Roos', 1965; 25
no. 142 and no. 127
mistakenly catalogued twice

Bernt, Walter, Die niederländischen Maler und Zeichner des 17. Jahrhunderts, Munich 1957-1958
vol. I, no. 335 ...More

Watermark: Watermark: Recto, left centre: "IC" or "IG" (see tracing in file).

Inscription: Verso: lower left, graphite: "7/"; lower left corner, brown ink, dated by the artist: "Tot Grave de 3m/2d 1675 / 6m na de belegering //".

Collector's mark: Verso: lower left, stamped in blue ink: Neville Davison Goldsmid (L.1962); lower left, stamped in black ink: Sir Robert Witt (L.2228b).