The works register — etchings, lithographs, paintings, watercolours, drawings
The Oeuvre
Every documented work — registered, shown, explained.
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No. 01 — The register
The oeuvre of Eugène Rensburg comprises etchings, lithographs, oil paintings, watercolours and drawings. This page introduces technique, subjects and signatures and explains how the register is built. Every documented work receives a register number (ER) with a reference to the source in which it was found.
No. 02 — The city
City and harbour views
Old Rotterdam — Leuvehaven, Coolsingel, Laurenskerk — and the fish market in Utrecht: Rensburg etched the city as he saw it.
No. 03 — Oedipus, 1913
King Oedipus, Arnhem 1913
For Willem Royaards’ open-air production of King Oedipus in Arnhem, Rensburg drew from life — DEL AD VIV. Two plates are documented: the monumental etching in an edition of 3/5 and the small version, known as an épreuve d’artiste.
No. 04 — Landscape and water
Landscape and water
From the forest brook that holds the auction record to the fishing boats of Volendam: the landscape in etching and watercolour.
No. 05 — Catalogue
The register
Every work documented with a source receives a register number (ER) referring to where it was found. Twelve works are currently registered; the register grows with every new find.
- ER-0001 Havengezicht met stad aan de horizon
- ER-0002 Bosbeek (A forest brook)
- ER-0003 Koning Oedipus — grote ets (3/5)
- ER-0004 Koning Oedipus — kleine versie
- ER-0005 Coolsingel, Rotterdam
- ER-0006 Lange Torenstraat, Rotterdam
- ER-0007 Havengezicht, Rotterdam
- ER-0008 Vischmarkt, Utrecht
- ER-0009 Volendam — klederdracht en vissersschepen
- ER-0010 Boszicht
- ER-0011 Vierhouten
- ER-0012 Brug over de Lee bij De Lier, Westland
Archive — images found, 2014
From the image archive of the previous website (2014): images of works not yet fully documented. They do not yet carry a register number and are not linked.
No. 06 — Signatures and editions
Signatures and edition inscriptions
Two signature forms are well documented. On paintings and drawings he signed Eug.Rensburg. — as on the 1897 canvas and on a pencil drawing of 1921. On etchings the full name Eugène Rensburg appears in pencil below the sheet, with title, date and an edition number. Documented editions are 3/5, 22/100, 43/50 and 52/150; the inscriptions “Premier état / Unicum” and “Épreuve d’artiste” also occur. In the plate of the Oedipus etchings appears DEL AD VIV: from life.
Eug.Rensburg.
on canvas and drawings
Eugène Rensburg
in pencil below the print
No. 07 — Technique and subject
Techniques: from etching to oil
Etching is Rensburg’s principal technique. That domain includes the colour etchings — Café Caland in Rotterdam, the fish market in Utrecht (1925), the Gouda fish market — and hand-coloured impressions, such as of the Coolsingel from 1912. He also worked in lithography, among others for the Vijverberg in The Hague (1910) and the calendar Mooi Holland anno 1933. In oil, the harbour scene of 1897 and A forest brook are documented; watercolours run from a woodland view of 1893 to Vierhouten in 1931. Finally he left numerous pencil and pen drawings, often dated and inscribed with a location.
Subjects: the topographical city
Rensburg was a topographer. His city views show the old, pre-bombardment Rotterdam: the Leuvehaven, the Delftsche Poort, the Kralingsche Plas, the Laurenskerk. He also drew and etched harbours, river views along the Rhine, Danube, Seine and Thames, motifs on the Zuiderzee and in Volendam, and windmills. The Scheen tradition also attributes to him aquaria and terraria, portraits, historical genre pieces, animals and ships.
No. 08 — Scope and market
Size and market
The often-repeated claim of more than five thousand etchings, of which some four hundred and fifty of Rotterdam, is nowhere substantiated; we report it as tradition, not as fact. As for the market: the auction record stands at USD 6,462 for the painting A forest brook (Sotheby’s Amsterdam, 2011); works on paper reached up to about USD 820 according to the same aggregator. For Rotterdam etchings, asking prices up to EUR 1,450 are known, while small etchings have also sold at auction for a few dozen euros. Through one auction platform alone, more than a hundred works have passed since 2014. These figures are indicative and say nothing about the value of an individual work.
No. 09 — Archive collection
The Haags Gemeentearchief collection
The Haags Gemeentearchief (The Hague City Archives) holds a substantial body of work by Eugène Rensburg: more than 140 drawings, watercolours and prints, almost all with motifs from The Hague — from the Scheveningen coast in 1886 into the 1950s. Fourteen works from that collection, across two walls — works on paper, and etchings and lithographs — each ordered by year. Click a work to open its object page with the full catalogue details. The images were made available by the archive under a CC BY 4.0 licence.
Works on paper
Prints: etchings and lithographs
More from the collection
Further works by Eugène Rensburg — more than 140 objects in total — can be explored in the online collection of the Haags Gemeentearchief.
Images: Haags Gemeentearchief — Beeldcollectie (inventory numbers with the works). Licence: CC BY 4.0. View the full collection at the Haags Gemeentearchief.