Adriaen van de Velde
Rural scene, with a family and their animals resting in a field, by ruins
Auction Closed
January 31, 05:59 PM GMT
Estimate
25,000 - 35,000 USD
Lot Details
Description
Adriaen van de Velde
Amsterdam 1636 - 1672
Rural scene, with a family and their animals resting in a field, by ruins
Brush and black ink and gray wash over black chalk, within black ink framing lines;
signed and dated lower center in brown ink: A.V.velde f i662;
bears inscriptions in black chalk, verso : hoog 6 1/2 d / br 10 d / Ad van de Velden f 1662 (in Ploos van Amstel's hand), and: by Ploos a. 1800 f 470 Kops / - Kops . 1808 620 Josi / Josi verkocht van den Heer Jolles / Jolles. Claefin f.1200.
164 by 254 mm; 6 ½ by 10 in.
his sale, Amsterdam, Van der Schley et al., 3 March 1800 ff, folder L, no. 1;
acquired in 1808 by Christiaan Josi, Amsterdam;
Boguslaw Jolles (d. 1912), Dresden and Vienna (L.381 very faintly visible);
Alfred Beurdeley (1847-1919), Paris (L.421),
his sale, Paris, Feral/Paulme, 8-10 June 1920, lot 322 (to Goldstadt)
Despite having passed through several very distinguished collections, beginning with that of the great Amsterdam connoisseur Cornelis Ploos van Amstel (1726-1798), this exceptionally appealing and well preserved drawing by Adriaen van de Velde is previously unpublished. A deeply pastoral scene, the composition exudes rural peace and contentment: in a field, surrounded by their resting flocks, a peasant woman holds her baby, while her husband, seated on the ground, reaches up to relieve her of their child. Behind, we see to the left a ramshackle barn or simple stable, rather similar to that in the Rijksmuseum’s famous drawing of A Hut in the Woods1, while to the right are picturesque, overgrown ruins, perhaps alluding to the many Dutch castles and abbeys that were destroyed during the late 16th and early 17th-century wars with the Spanish. The whole scene is bathed in Van de Velde’s typical Italianate sunlight – something that he must have taken from the example of artists such as Jan Asselijn (1610-1652) or Bartholomeus Breenbergh (1598-1657), as it seems he never himself made the journey south.
The drawing is clearly signed and dated 1662, something that might usually indicate that it was made as an independent, finished work of art for sale. Yet other, similarly signed drawings by Van de Velde, such as the rather comparable Pastoral scene at a waterfall, at the Morgan Library and Museum, New York, were in fact used as modelli for paintings: the Morgan drawing is, like the present work, dated 1662, but the related painting, in Madrid, dates only from the following year.2 As Bart Cornelis has, however, kindly confirmed, no painting relating to the Perman drawing is known.
One of Van de Velde’s most original and successfully resolved compositions, this significant, rediscovered drawing can be compared with the very best of the artist’s works, such as the splendid Hilly landscape with a ferry on a river, in Haarlem.3 No landscape by Van de Velde of similar quality and importance has appeared on the market in recent decades.
1. Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, inv. RP-T-1902-A-4603
2. New York, Morgan Library & Museum, inv. I, 149; Madrid, Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, inv. 417 (1978.56); see Bart Cornelis and Marijn Schapelhouman, Adriaen van de Velde, Dutch Master of Landscape, exh. cat., Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, and London, Dulwich Picture Gallery, 2016-17, pp. 84-88, cats. 13-14
3. Haarlem, Teylers Museum, inv. R 044
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