Lot 70

Aert Schouman Dordrecht 1710 - 1792 The Hague

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Description

Aert Schouman
view of dordrecht from the south-west, with cattle and a milkmaid in the foreground
signed and dated in gold, lower left margin: A: Schouman. FECIT. 1739 and inscribed, bottom centre: DORDRECHT; inscribed in brown ink, verso: 't gesigt van Dordrecht aen de Lantzyden 1739
watercolour and gouache, within black and gold framing lines and brown gouache drawn border

Provenance

Sale, Amsterdam, Sotheby Mak van Waay, 14 November 1983, lot 75;
De Heer Saam Nijstad and Mevrouw Lily Nijstad-Einhorn, The Hague;
their sale, Amsterdam, Sotheby's, 19 May 2004, lot 206

Exhibited

Amsterdam, Museum Het Rembrandthuis, and Dordrecht, Dordrechts Museum, Kleur en Raffinement, Tekeningen uit de Unicorno Collectie, 1994-5, cat. no. 48

Literature

L.J. Bol, 'Aart Schouman "overkunstig schilder in oly en waterverw" V. Teken- en aquarelleerkunst; Topografie (vervolg) en genre voorstellingen,' Tableau 9 (1986-7), no. 2, pp. 75-6, reproduced fig. 48;
idem, Aart Schouman; Ingenious Painter and Draughtsman, Doornspijk 1991, pp. 61-2, reproduced fig. 48

Catalogue Note

This is one of the earliest, and arguably the best, of Schouman's topographical landscapes. Apart from a small, rather uncertainly drawn group of sketches of 1728-30, he appears only to have made views of this type after 1737. In contrast to other leading Dutch topographical draughtsman of the period such as Jan de Beijer or Cornelis Pronck, Schouman was less interested in the precise rendering of actual detail; though still very accurate in topographical terms, the emphasis in his views is much more on light and atmosphere than is the case in the works of most of his contemporaries.

Schouman's views of Dordrecht belong to of a tradition of depictions of the city that goes back to at least the early 17th century; indeed, the artist himself recognised his debt to this tradition when in 1759 he made a watercolour copy of a panoramic Dordrecht view by Aelbert Cuyp, originally painted in 1647 (Schouman's copy was sold, London, Sotheby's, 21 March 1973, lot 36). The present work was one of the remarkable group of 25 watercolours and gouaches by Schouman in the 'Unicorno' (Nijstad) collection (see Provenance), which illustrated every aspect of the artist's work. See also lots 111 and 117 in the present sale.