Adam Willaerts Antwerp 1577 - 1664 Utrecht

Leeuwaarden, Fries Museum, Van Jan Steen tot Jan Sluijters, De Smaak van Douwes, 1998-9

Though born in Antwerp, Willaerts moved at a fairly early age to Utrecht, where he established himself as one of the city's leading artists and also as a highly successful marine painter. His drawings are exceedingly rare, and the only fully signed example that is known is the small two-part sketch by the artist in the Album Amicorum Arnold van Buchel, now in the University Library in Leiden (Letterkunde 902, folios 94v, 95r; see Thea Vignau-Wilberg, in Wallraf-Richartz-Jahrbuch, vol.55, 1994, p.239, fig.9).  The present drawing, which is clearly by the same hand as the sketch in the Buchelius Album Amicorum, is the only known large-scale drawing that can be certainly attributed to Willaerts, and its high degree of finish and delicate colouring mark it out as a landmark in early seventeenth-century Dutch marine drawing.