View of Houtewael near the Sint Anthoniespoort [recto]

The remarkable drawing, View of Houtewael near the Sint Anthoniespoort [recto], created by Rembrandt van Rijn around 1650, offers a powerful glimpse into the periphery of 17th-century Amsterdam. This work is executed masterfully using a reed pen and brown ink, enriched with gray-brown wash and subtle touches of white applied sparingly to laid paper. The utilization of the reed pen allows for thick, expressive lines, characterizing the immediate and spontaneous approach Rijn often favored in his mature career. This piece falls firmly within the artistic output of the 1601 to 1650 period, when Dutch drawing reached a height of innovation and emotional depth.

As a foundational example of Dutch graphic arts, the drawing showcases Rijn’s revolutionary approach to topographical studies. Rather than idealized scenery, the composition captures the lived reality of the marshy environs surrounding the Sint Anthoniespoort city gate. Rijn utilizes the delicate brown wash to establish depth and atmospheric perspective, employing an economy of line to suggest structure and form without requiring excessive detail. This immediacy of technique elevates the piece beyond a simple landscape record into a deeply felt visual response to the location.

Rijn's corpus of drawings remains essential for understanding the evolution of the period’s visual culture. Unlike many of his formal oil paintings, works such as View of Houtewael near the Sint Anthoniespoort [recto] reveal the artist's private observational process and unique ability to render light and space through pure line and tone. The drawing is currently held in the esteemed collection of the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. Because of its historical and cultural significance, high-resolution images and prints of this essential Dutch work are often made available through public domain initiatives, ensuring widespread scholarly access to the mastery of Rijn's draftsmanship.