Cornelis Saftleven Gorinchem 1607 - 1681 Rotterdam

This lively drawing was made very early in Saftleven's career, when he was only 20.  The Nativity was a subject which he treated on several occasions: in his monograph on the artist, Wolfgang Schulz listed three extant drawings, plus a further eight that appear in 17th and 18th-Century sale catalogues, of which this may be one(see Wolfgang Schulz, Cornelis Saftleven, Berlin 1978, pp. 71-2 and 203-4). Schulz also published a painting (now in the Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Munich), in which Saftleven represents the Nativity in a similarly light-hearted manner, with a group of peasant dancing to the bagpipes.  The painting is dated 1642, but clearly looks back to the artist's youthful approach to the subject, seen in the present drawing of fifteen years earlier.