Hendrik Cornelisz. Vroom Haarlem 1566 - 1640

Sale M.N., and others, Amsterdam, 21 February 1939, lot 90 (as Abraham Verwer);
Bernard Houthakker (L.1272), his sale, in these Rooms, 17-18 November 1975, lot 19 (as Vroom, purchased by the present owner)

Amsterdam, Dessins Exposés chez Bernard Houthakker 1952, No. 78 (as Vroom)

Nearly 30 years after George Keyes published his extensive study of the work of Hendrick Vroom's son Cornelis, the drawing style of the elder Vroom still awaits an in-depth study, even though he was a highly influential artist and an important pioneer in Dutch marine painting and drawing.  A signed drawing in the Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut, does, however, provide a fixed starting-point for attributions, and other notable sheets that can be associated with the Yale drawing include the fine Beach Scene in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, and a double-sided sheet of studies in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (see G. Keyes, Cornelis Vroom, Marine and Landscape Artist, 2 vols., Alphen-aan-den-Rijn 1975, vol.I, pls. XXV-XXVIII).  Comparison with these, and also with two other drawings, sold New York, Sotheby's, 20 January 1982, lot 45, and Amsterdam, Christie's, 13 November 1995, lot 142, suggest that Houthakker's attribution of this accomplished drawing to Hendrick Vroom was surely correct.