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The history of Dordrecht

The history of Dordrecht revised and updated with many new photos.

Famous Dutch Painters from Dordrecht, Ancient Capital of Holland

Part 16

41. Hubert van Ravesteyn
42. Marinus Pieter Reus
43. Johannes Rosierse

Note : Please do not email me with technical questions about paintings and their age and origin because I am not an expert but I only have gathered information about the Painters from the Netherlands and specially from Dordrecht.

Dordrecht is not only known as the oldest city and ancient capital of Holland but also for the many famous painters who were born or lived in Dordrecht during the late Middle ages and later centuries.

The most famous painters from Dordrecht were :

Abraham Bloemaert, Ferdinand Bol, Abraham van Calreat, Albaert, Benjamin Gerritz and Jacob Gerritz CUYP, Pieter Fontijn, Aert de Gelder, Samuel van Hoogstraten, Arnold Houbraken, Willem de Klerk, Frans Lebret, Jacobus Leveck, Nicolaes Maes, Ary Scheffer, Aert and Martinus Schouman, Abraham van Strij, Jan Veth and many, many others.

On the next pages you can find many works from these famous painters who were responsible for many styles of paintings and they immortalized the daily life and landscapes in the 15th to 19th century. Most of their masterpieces are nowadays part of collections in museums all over the world and of which many can be seen in the local Dordrechts Museum.

Hubert van Ravesteyn

Dordrecht 1638 - Dordrecht 1691

Hubert van Ravesteyn was christened in June 1638 in Dordrecht, he only left a modest oeuvre. Documents recently published some twenty works could be reconstructed. He painted barn interiors and still lifes. He was not a very original artist, he often repeated his own compositions with very little variation. His view of the interior peasant he borrowed from his townsman Aelbert Cuyp even as his use of color he used from Aelbert Cuyp. For his still lifes the work of the Amsterdam still life painter Jan Jansz. van de Velde (c. 1627-1672) was his starting point.

Stable interior

Hubert van Ravesteyn
Oil on panel 62,8 x 90,7 cm
Dordrechts museum

Still life with vegetables and fruit

Hubert van Ravesteyn
panel 33,1 x 37,9 cm
Dordrechts museum

The articles in this panel reminiscent of 17th-century barn interiors with still life-like corners. Especially in Rotterdam was that type of painting often manufactured by painters as Cornelis and Herman Saftleven and Hendrick Sorgh.

Van Ravesteyn brings balance and order in his composition by the coal, fruit baskets and other objects in a diagonal arrangement in place. He does not use the broad, loose brush lining of the house painters, but his model is very careful with small touchess on the brush.

Peasants playing cards in an interior

Hubert van Ravesteyn
oil on panel 33 x 24 cm
Private collection

The panel is placed in an 18th Century carved and gilded frame

A still life with cabbages, onions, apples, a knife, wicker baskets and earthenware jugs on a table, together with a plate of fish and a blue cloth

Hubert van Ravesteyn
oil on panel 29.6 x 44 cm
Private collection

A still life with cabbages, carrots, gherkins, fish on an earthenware plate, an earthenware pot and two baskets with artichokes and pears

Hubert van Ravesteyn
oil on panel 30.6 x 34.9 cm
Private collection

A man in an interior drinking beer; and a peasant in an interior eating mussels, a pair (2)

Hubert van Ravesteyn
oil on panel 18.7 x 17.3 cm
Private collection

Marinus Pieter Reus

Dordrecht 1865 - Bergen op Zoom 1938

Marinus Pieter Reus started his career as a decorative painter. At night he attended a drawing course and received some lessons and advice of Roland Larij (1855-1932), on his advice he dubbed Weissenbruch's work and of Jan Willem Roelofs in the Dordrecht Museum. After his successful graduation in 1891, he became completely devoted to painting and calls on nature to his only teacher. Meanwhile the first steps appears of a nerve disease, a disease which intervals will continue to come back.

From 1894 he expose his work, the most at Pictura af which he had become a member in 1885. In 1895 he assumed as a member of the artists association Arti et Amicitiae. At the end of 1897 the Dordrecht Museum buys a painting of Reus during an exhibition in the museum.
His colleagues call him "wild" because of his intense way of working. In 1920 Reus is burned-out and is no longer able to paint. In 1930 he is in a nursing facility for mentally ill at Bergen op Zoom, he dies in April 1938.

Sheafs of corn

Marinus Pieter Reus
Oil on canvas 55 x 75,5 cm
Dordrechts museum

Ships on the river

Marinus Pieter Reus
Oil on panel 23,8 x 50 cm
Dordrechts museum

View on the Merwede river

Marinus Pieter Reus
Oil on canvas on panel 41,3 x 51,7 cm
Dordrechts museum

Johannes Rosierse

Dordrecht 1818 - Dordrecht 1901

Rosierse lives and works in Dordrecht. In the beginning he is clerk, but later he became a pupil of Johannes Machiel Versteeg and Boshamer. He painted mainly interiors with figures, mostly by candle or lamp light. Rosierse is honorary member of the society Pictura of Dordrecht.