Claes Jansz. Visscher

Michael Ingram (bears his collector's mark, not in Lugt),
by whose executors sold, London, Sotheby's  The Ingram Collection: Drawings and Watercolours from the Collection of the Late Michael Ingram, 8 December 2005, lot 3

Although in the same direction as the print, this would seem to be the preparatory drawing by Visscher for one of a series of landscapes which he engraved, after designs by Abraham Bloemaert, in 1620 (Hollstein 282).  The handling, though rather tighter and less expansive than in some of Visscher's independent drawings, is typical of his studies for prints, and there are various compositional differences between the drawing and the print: in the latter, the man and dog in the foreground are omitted, the tree to the right has more leaves, and behind it is a partially collapsed hay-cover, not visible in the drawing.  The farm buildings are, in turn, derived (though in reverse) from the central section of the much larger composition, Rural Landscape with Ganymede, engraved after Bloemaert's design by Jan Saenredam, in 1603-5 (see M. Roethlisberger, Abraham Bloemaert and his Sons, 2 vols., Doornspijk 1993, vol. I, p. 132, cat. 85, vol. II, figs. 145, 149).