Abraham Rutgers

Abraham Rutgers was an artist active across the mid-to-late 17th century, with documented work spanning the period of 1640 to 1682. His surviving oeuvre focuses primarily on detailed landscape and genre scenes, utilizing drawing as his principal medium.

Six drawings by Rutgers are currently represented in international museum collections, establishing his practice within the tradition of observational European landscape art. These works emphasize specific regional topography and the depiction of everyday life. Key examples include the detailed urban view, View of Gouda Seen from the Southeast with the Janskerk in the Center, and the seasonal genre study, Winter Landscape with Four Skaters. Further represented works documenting rural life and waterways include River Scene, Landscape with Two Fishermen alongside a Road, and River Landscape on the Vecht (?), with Figures on a Road near a Haystack.

The importance of Rutgers’s documentation of 17th-century European scenery is confirmed by the preservation of his work in leading institutions. His drawings are held in the permanent collections of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Today, images of Abraham Rutgers prints and drawings are often available in the public domain, allowing for the reproduction of high-quality prints for study and appreciation.