The Mariëndaal Convent near Utrecht, after 1731

About the Work

From the mid-1720s onwards, Cornelis Pronk travelled the Netherlands, usually in the company of friends, collectors and other artists. On the way, he sketched the sights he visited, thus collecting images that would later serve him as a basis for prints or, as in this case, drawings intended for collectors. Working with a brush and drawing pen, he immersed the architecturally unexceptional entrance gate to the former Cistercian convent of Mariëndaal near Utrecht – which served at the time as a Protestant ladies’ foundation – in an atmospheric summer light.