Description: Pen and brown ink, grey and blue wash, 239 x 423 mm. Ruled framing lines in brown ink. Blue wash is used in the sky and in the sea vista to the left. Laid down. Inscribed at the top centre, in pen and brown ink, Lisbona. Numbered in the lower right corner, in violet ink, 41. Mark of J. G. De la Gardie (Lugt 2722a). On the verso, in pencil, an anonymous mark (Lugt 178c). Inscribed in pencil, by a hand found in the 19th-century catalogue of the collection, Honthorst / Gerard and Pieter de Wit / Candid / K.O. (Oberhuber). On a piece of the old mount pasted to the verso, in pen and brown ink: Das Einnemen der Stadt Lisbona von den Dänischen und Nordischen völcker under Rollone.

This drawing corresponds in style, format and execution to a series of some 28 drawings by Van de Passe in the Royal Museum of Art in Copenhagen. They in turn belong to a series originally comprising 44 drawings by various artists, remaining from a series of 84 drawings dealing with episodes of Danish history, commissioned by King Christian IV in 1637 from the engraver and publisher Simon van de Passe of Utrecht. Simon’s brother Crispijn seems to have been responsible for the major part of them, while other preserved drawings are by Bloemaert, Honthorst, Bijlert, Knüpfer, Tilemann, Willaerts, Palamedesz. and Moeyaert. The series included a title page and the drawings were clearly intended for publication as a volume. However, several of the artists executed paintings that were to decorate the Ballroom of Kronborg Castle. Many of these paintings have survived, a number of them in Swedish palaces and manor houses; they were taken as spoils of war in 1658–60.  

The archaic style of the drawing, rooted in the 16th-century Netherlandish print tradition, may explain Oberhuber’s attribution to Pieter de Witte (c. 1540–1628), and as Schepelen and Houklaer show, the composition is partly based on a print by Antonio Tempesta of 1612.  There seems to be a simple explanation for De la Gardie’s attribution of the drawing to Honthorst. He himself owned a painting belonging to the Kronborg series at his manor of Maltesholm in southern Sweden, and there were three others at neighbouring Vittskövle. All four were attributed to Honthorst. These, and several more, were reproduced in line etchings by the Swede Anders Hultgren (1763–1838). [Magnusson, Dutch Drawings no. 288]

Lissabon intas av danska trupper under Robert av Normandie