WATERMARK: arms of the city of Amsterdam[1]

The Terme di Caracalla, the second largest Roman public baths, were constructed in the 2nd century AD during the reigns of the Emperors Septimius Severus and Caracalla.[2] They were in full working order until the mid-5th century, after which they fell into disuse and ruin. The present drawing offers a glimpse into their appearance 1,200 years later, bathed in warm Italian sunlight and overgrown with lush vegetation.

While it can be hard to pin down the authorship of such drawings from the Dutch ‘Golden Age’, evidence suggests this sheet was executed by the topographical draughtsman, Willem Schellinks. Born in Amsterdam into a family of artists, Schellinks studied under Karel Dujardin prior to embarking on extensive travels across Europe, which ultimately took him as far as Sicily and Malta.[3] He was strongly attracted to the style of the Dutch Italianate masters, especially that of Jan Asselijn, who he knew well. Asselijn was renowned for his southern Italian landscapes with archaeological ruins, made during his extended trip to Italy. As a youngster Schellinks learnt much by copying a number of Asselijn’s drawings, whose intricate technical approach is reflected in the present sheet.[4]

Asselijn was a highly innovative draughtsman; his drawings were famed for their monumentality and broad open views pervaded by still atmospheres, with light dominating the foreground. Alongside working in pen and wash over delicate wavering lines of graphite, he developed a rather more original technique, especially when working in Italy from around 1636-42. First, he would wet the entire sheet of paper and apply a layer of white pigment. Second, while the paper was still damp, using only a brush he would draw the subject in various shades of wash. As a result, the darker tones would meld into the damp white-coated paper, turning the wash milky and cloudy, enabling him to achieve a distinctly painterly, misty, and atmospheric effect. Finally, as the paper dried, applying precise strokes and short broken lines he would add foreground motifs and enhance incidental details, such as vegetation and masonry.[5]

It is clear that in executing his view of the Baths of Caracalla, Schellinks followed Asselijn’s working method step by step. He has succeeded in emulating Asselijn’s careful handling of spatiality, architectural structure, and the surface texture of decaying masonry. Moreover, the composition successfully evokes the atmospheric effects and the brilliance of southern Italian sunlight, especially its effect on the sun-bleached steps at the left of the composition, brilliantly lit with reflected light.

Looking more closely at the drawing, there are faint remnants of black chalk, notably a long sweeping stroke in the lower left corner; most of the chalk lines evidently dissolved under the brushstrokes applied to the already dampened paper. We see highly distinctive twisting tree branches and rock formations, extremely close to Schellinks’ Italian Landscape with a Riverbank, Reapers and a Herdsman in the British Museum.[6] The same mannerisms are found in his View of the Interior of the Colosseum, preserved in the Boijmans Museum, Rotterdam, along with short parallel strokes of different tones describing the ancient stonework.[7] Throughout, leaf shapes and patterns are created with blunt strokes applied with the side of the brush, as in the Rijksmuseum’s View of the Pont du Rhône, long attributed to Asselijn but now given to Schellinks, as well as in his autograph View of Santi Giovanni e Paolo in the Teylers Museum.[8]

By adding touches of subtly muted green around the darker leaf shapes, Schellinks went a step beyond working within the more conventional confines of shades of brown and grey, commonly adopted by Asselijn, Van Bloemen and others. Though less common, dashes of coloured wash were certainly employed by 17th-century Italianate draughtsmen such as Cornelis van Poelenburch and Bartholomeus Breenbergh.[9] Moreover, there is at least another instance of Schellinks enhancing a drawing in this way; namely, his suggestive View of the Ponte Molle, preserved in the Fogg Art Museum.[10]

Schellinks was evidently very comfortable with using wash as a primary medium. The points of transition in the present drawing between the Mediterranean light and shade are skilfully handled, as is the way in which he returned to these areas and highlighted them with darker shades of grey and green. He clearly knew exactly how to bring his entire composition evocatively to life.