Johannes van Lexmond, Courtyard in Dordrecht

Van Lexmond must have been fascinated by quiet courtyards. He was honored in 1799 with the silver medal of honor from the department of engineering for a drawing of a Doric gate. The many old gate buildings provided the nicest vistas, such as here on a sunny winter’s day, where a milk woman is going past the doors and a boy is selling peat. Special attention is paid to the brickwork of the gate passage by not only rendering the structure as natural as possible, but also approaching the color nuances in the brick as faithfully as possible.

Van Lexmond was apprenticed to the painters’ atelier of the Van Strij brothers. He had been a member of Pictura since 1790, and was the secretary of this drawing society of 1809–1828. He never participated in major national exhibitions. Van Lexmond died unmarried on 22 November 1838.