- 128
Nicolaes Muys Rotterdam 1740 - 1808
Description
- Nicolaes Muys
- four studies: a) a man seen from behind, holding a basket; b) a gentleman seated at a table wearing a tricorn hat; c) a gentleman standing by a table with his arms outstretched; d) a sheet of studies of hands
- each bears numbering in black chalk:
a) upper right: 93, lower right: 9;
b) upper right: 19, lower right: 14D;
c) upper right: 17, lower right: 15D;
d) upper right: 29, lower right: 4;
each black chalk, within black chalk framing lines
Provenance
b & c) sale, Amsterdam, Sotheby's, 10 November 1998, lots 187, 188
Exhibited
Catalogue Note
These studies originate from a sketchbook of similarly worked up drawings, all, as here, within drawn frames. Muys seems to have used this sketchbook during much of the 1770s: several drawings from the album are studies for his 1776 painting of a scene from the play, De Vriendschap (Amsterdam, Toneelmuseum, see Dutch Masterpieces from the Eighteenth Century, exhibition catalogue, Minneapolis/Toledo/Philadelphia 1971, cat. no. 53, pl. 57), while another is a study for the artist's self-portrait in the Boijmans van Beuningen Museum, Rotterdam (see Museum Boymans-van Beuningen, Old Paintings 1400-1900, Rotterdam 1972, p. 151, reproduced). The date of 1771 on a further drawing from the group (sold, London, Christie's, 11 December 1979, lot 325) shows that Muys used the sketchbook over a number of years.
The sketchbook appears to have been on the Amsterdam art market, still intact, in the 1960s, when it was purchased by a Boston art dealer, and thereafter dispersed. A group of 23 sheets did, however, remain together as recently as 1985, at which time most of them were acquired by the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, the Toneelmuseum (Theatre Museum), Amsterdam, and the Institut Neérlandais, Paris.