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Renesse, Constantijn (Daniel) van [à]
(b Maarssen, 10 Sept 1626; d Eindhoven, 12 Dec 1680). Dutch draughtsman, etcher and painter. He was the son of Lodewijk van Renesse, a theologian and minister of Maarssen who from 1634 was attached to Frederik Hendrik of Orange Nassau as Military Chaplain. In the course of this service Lodewijk and his family moved to Breda in 1638. On 18 July 1639 Constantijn went to university at Leiden to read literature; while there he produced his earliest known work of art, a drawing Skull with Books (1640), known only from a document. In 1642 he turned to reading mathematics and in the same year produced The Execution (Vienna, Albertina), a drawing inspired by a print by Jacques Callot and drawn in the minutely worked and somewhat caricature-like style of Pieter Quast. He also borrowed from Quast the subject and the use of parchment as a support for his signed drawing The Quack (1645; Stockholm, Nmus.). He occasionally repeated this detailed style, for example in his Historical Scene (1663; Vienna, Albertina) and Young Man Seated on a Chair in a Landscape (1672; Paris, Louvre). Meanwhile he had received some instruction from Rembrandt, who had tried to teach him a different style of drawing, evident in the Annunciation (Berlin, Kupferstichkab.; see fig.), which shows corrections made by Rembrandt to the figures and the definition of space with a broad-nibbed reed pen. Further evidence of Rembrandt’s tutelage is provided in van Renesse’s drawing Daniel in the Lions’ Den (Rotterdam, Mus. Boymans-van Beuningen), which is signed and dated 1652 on the recto and inscribed on the verso: de eerste tijckening getoont Bij Rem Bramt in jaer 1649 den 1 october (‘the first drawing shown to Rembrandt in the year 1649 on 1 October’). This implies that he had shown the first design to Rembrandt in 1649 and had completed the page three years later. Numerous drawings, mostly biblical scenes, with corrections by Rembrandt have been ascribed to van Renesse, including the Prophet Gad Offers David his Choice of Punishment (Amsterdam, Rembrandthuis), a Crucifixion (Rotterdam, Boymans-van Beuningen) and Job with his Wife and Friends (Stockholm, Nmus.).
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