Wybrand Hendriks

This extremely well-preserved watercolor exemplifies the fashion in 18th and early 19th-century Dutch art for making watercolor copies of oil paintings by earlier masters. All the leading artists of the day made works of this type, and Wybrand Hendriks was no exception. These watercolors are often fascinating reinterpretations of the original paintings, reproducing their compositions in a very different idiom, using an entirely different tonality and palette that reflects the artistic preferences of the period in which they were made. These copies also often served as sources of inspiration for original compositions by the later artists; although such game still lifes were not especially en vogue in 18th-century Holland, Hendriks made several original watercolors of his own invention depicting such subjects, one of which is also to be sold this week from the Van den Broek collection.

Born and trained in Amsterdam, Hendriks initially worked as a painter of wall-hangings. In 1776, he moved to Haarlem, becoming a director of the Haarlem Drawing Academy, and from 1785 until 1820 he was Keeper of the art collections of the Teylers Museum, which holds a substantial group of his drawings and watercolors, including a number of copies after 17th-century paintings. It was during Hendriks' tenure that the Teylers acquired the exceptional group of Italian Renaissance drawings from the collection of Queen Christina of Sweden that remains one of its crowning glories.

The painting by Jan Weenix (1641-1719) on which Hendriks based this watercolor exists in several variants, and it is not entirely clear which one Hendriks actually knew. The primary version, now in the Wallace Collection¹, was in the Schönborn von Pommersfelden collection in Bavaria, first at Schloss Weissenstein and later at Schloss Gaibach, from 1719 until 1867, so it seems more likely that Hendriks actually saw another version or copy of the composition.²

A talented and varied draughtsman, Hendricks made portraits, landscapes and lively animal studies, as well as copies after earlier masters. An exhibition dedicated to his life and works will be held at the Teylers Museum, Haarlem, in the autumn of 2023.  

1. London, Wallace Collection, inv. P182; A.A.van Wagenberg-ter Hoeven, Jan Weenix. The Paintings, Zwolle 2018, pp.304-5, cat. 185 

2. e.g. the version that was with Noortman & Brod, in London, in 1984