Esaias van de Velde

With R.W.P. de Vries, Amsterdam (1924 cat. no. 564);
A. Schwarz, Amsterdam

Amsterdam, Rijksprentenkabinet, De Verzameling van A. Schwarz, 1968, cat. no. 100, reproduced

George S. Keyes, Esaias vanden Velde 1587 - 1630, Doornspijk 1984, cat. no. D 67, pl. 89

Window mounted with Japan paper. Remains of fomer backing adhering to various parts of the back. One small area of slight damage in sky, paper surface generally very slightly dirty, but overall condition nonetheless very good. Sold in a modern frame.
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George Keyes (loc. cit. ) has suggested that this delightful winter landscape might be a companion piece to the Landscape with a Gabled Country House, in the Van Regteren Altena Collection.¹  Also very similar in format and style are two other drawings, in the Lugt Collection, Paris, and the De Grez Collection at the Brussels Museum.² The latter served as the basis for one of a set of 14 landscape prints after drawings by Esaias, by a still unidentified printmaker.  When first published by J.P. Beerendrecht, the prints were not dated, but the second edition, published (probably very soon after the first) by Claes Jansz. Visscher, is dated 1617. The present drawing therefore postdates the print series, but shows that the small format and the approach to landscape seen in those prints remained attractive to the artist.

Some of Esaias' most beautiful drawings are winter landscapes.  One of his most spectacularly atmospheric treatments of the subject is a drawing of 1628, now in the Abrams Collection,³ where one can almost imagine the paper feeling cold to the touch, and another, upright in format and executed three years earlier, is now in the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.⁴  Both those works are much larger and more ambitious than the present, very intimate drawing, yet even on this scale, the artist's ability to capture light, atmosphere and mood is abundantly clear. 

1.   Keyes, op. cit., cat. no. D136, pl. 88
2.   Keyes, nos. D 117 and D 147, pls. 90-91, respectively
3.   Sold, Amsterdam, Sotheby's, 13 November 1991, lot 283
4.   Formerly in the Klaver Collction, sold, Amsterdam, Sotheby's, 10 May 1994, lot 23