Description: Black chalk, point of brush in brown, brown wash, 232 x 327 mm. Verso: Faint sketch of the Colosseum and other buildings, black chalk, brown wash (on the Colosseum only). Ruled framing lines in brown ink (partly cut away along the bottom). Brown stains at the lower right. Small dark stains in the centre. Watermark: Star over crown (a variant of Heawood 1123). Chain lines: 29 mm. Inscribed on the verso, in pencil, Crab (?). Numbered No. 22 and 2, as well as the present inventory number, all in pencil. Oval stamp of the Nationalmuseum.

This drawing shows the church of S. Teodoro in Rome, at the time called the temple of Marcus Curtius, and the adjoining slopes of the Palatine. An almost identical rendering of the subject by Jan Both is in the Prentenkabinet in Leiden (inv. no. 1161). According to Burke, the present drawing is an exact copy of that work. Steland, however, believes that both are drawn on the spot, and sees the somewhat longer wall to the right of the church in Both’s drawing as an indication that the two artists sat next to each other and saw the motif from slightly different angles. However, the precise correspondence in almost every other detail can only be explained by one being a copy of the other, although working from photographs alone it is not possible to decide which is the copy. There may also have been a common model for both drawings. The phenomenon is not unique: it is well known that northern artists in Rome copied each other’s drawings. Other copies are to be found in Edinburgh  and in Braunschweig, the latter inscribed “Monix”.

Supporting Asselijn’s authorship is the sketch on the verso, not previously noticed, which depicts the Colosseum from exactly the same spot as another drawing in Amsterdam.  The view includes the complex of S. Francesca Romana in the distance, and the same buildings are also lightly indicated with a few strokes in the present drawing. Perhaps the inscription on the verso, which seems to read “Crab”, is a reference to Asselijn’s nickname in Rome, Crabbetje.

Asselijn used this view in a drawing in Amsterdam,  in which he added figures at the entrance to the ruined church, and a caravan of people and cattle to the right, moving towards the Aventine. It served as the model for an etching by Gabriel Perelle. The print, entitled “Temple de Marcus Cursus”, is in reverse.  [Magnusson, Dutch Drawings no. 1]

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Jan Asselyn | San Teodoro al Palatino, Rom | Nationalmuseum