Lot 363
  • 363

PHILIPS WOUWERMAN | A Quayside Scene with traders unloading goods

Estimate
25,000 - 35,000 GBP
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Description

  • A Quayside Scene with traders unloading goods
  • Point of the brush and grey wash over black chalk, within pen and black ink framing lines;signed with the artist's monogram:  PHLW and bears lettering in brown ink, verso: f.
  • 196 by 265 mm

Provenance

G. Braamcamp,
his sale, Amsterdam, de Bosch, 29 February 1768, lot 304 (according to a note on the reverse);
Fürst Hohenzollern, Schloss Sigmaringen,
his sale, Bern, Jürg Stuker AG, 5-16 May 1977, lot 2698;
F.C. Butôt (1906-92), Sankt Gilgen, Austria,
his posthumous sale, Amsterdam, Sotheby’s, 16 November 1993, lot 84 (as Attributed to Philips Wouwerman)

Literature

L.J. Bol, G.S. Keyes and F.C. Butôt, Netherlandish Paintings and Drawings from the Collection of F.C. Butôt by little-known and rare masters of the seventeenth century, 1981, pp. 29-30, no. 109

Condition

Attached at the upper corners. Overall in good condition. Light scattered foxing throughout, more noticeable in the upper section of the sheet. Otherwise chalk and wash remains fresh.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

Catalogue Note

Although many paintings by Wouwerman are known, his drawings are very rare; the most significant examples of his works to be found in public collections are the small but fine groups in the Teyler Museum, Haarlem, the British Museum, and the Fodor Collection at the Amsterdam Museum.  In the last twenty years, only two other significant drawings by the artist have appeared on the market: the Horse being schooled, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York1, and A Rider about to mount a Piebald Horse, a Boy Holding the Bridle, in the Clement C. Moore Collection.2   Described by Keyes (loc. cit.) as ‘one of the most fluent and engaging studies by him to have survived,’, this drawing treats a theme that Wouwerman depicted on various occasions, in paintings as well as drawings.  In handling, this drawing most closely resembles the Encampment, in the Lugt Collection.3  As regards paintings, the closest in composition to the present drawing is a panel in a German private collection, which Birgit Schumacher dates to the first half of the 1660s.4

As Frits Duparc pointed out in his recent essay on Wouwerman's drawings (the only publication to date on this subject), the elaborate form of the artist’s monogram that we see here is typically only found in his later works, dating from the later 1640s and thereafter.5  The prominent signature, completeness of composition, and lack of a direct link with any surviving painting, all suggest that the drawing was most likely made as a finished work, for sale, rather than as a study for a painting.

1.  Sold, London, Sotheby's, 4 July 2012, lot 91; Metropolitan Museum inv. no. 2013.144

2.  Sold, London, Sotheby’s, 8 July 2015, lot 93

3.  Paris, Fondation Custodia, Frits Lugt Collection, inv. 6507

4.  B. Schumacher, Philips Wouwerman, The Horse Painter of the Golden Age, 2 vols., Doornspijk 2006, vol. I, pp. 354-5, no. A464, reproduced vol. II, plate 434

5.  F. Duparc and Q. Buvelot, Philips Wouwerman (1619-1668), exhib. cat., Kassel, Gemäldegalerie Alter Meister, and The Hague, Mauritshuis, 2009-10, pp. 38-41