Willem van de Velde the Elder Leiden 1611 - 1693 London

This is one of a very small number of similarly precise and finished marine drawings, executed on a relatively large scale in brown ink on vellum by Willem van de Velde the Elder at the very beginning of his artistic career, in the early and mid-1640s.  Conceptually very similar to the justly celebrated penschilderijen  of the following decade - large and elaborate monochrome compositions, meticulously drawn in pen and black ink on a white grounded canvas - the drawings on vellum are a far less well-known aspect of the artist's early work. 

The five such drawings in the Nederlands Scheepvaartmuseum, Amsterdam, constitute the largest group in any single collection, although with one exception (inv. A85(2)), the Amsterdam drawings are all smaller, less elaborate compositions than this.  Other notable drawings of this type are the one, dated 1641, in the Albertina, Vienna (inv. 10037; see Drawings from the Albertina. Landscape in the Age of Rembrandt, exh.cat., New York, the Drawings Center, and Fort Worth, the Kimbell Art Museum, 1995, cat.70), and another sold, in these Rooms, 15 November 1991, lot 115. 

The example sold in 1995 was the first large-scale pen-drawing on vellum by van de Velde to have appeared on the market since 1921, and since then only one other, much smaller drawing in this technique has been offered at auction (New York, Sotheby's, 26 January 2002, lot 46).