CORNELIS DUSART | A YOUNG MAN SEATED AT A TABLE, READING

This drawing belongs to a small group of five important, late watercolors by Dusart, showing men seated reading at tables, all dated between 1688 and 1699. Two of the others are in museum collections, in Frankfurt and Haarlem¹,  one is known from a 1930 C.G. Boerner sale catalogue², and the fourth was sold in Paris in 2015.³  In this last drawing, the newspaper that the man reads is titled 'News from England', a subject of particular interest to a Dutch audience in 1688, which was not only the year in which the drawing was made, but was also when the Dutch Prince William of Orange took over the English throne, in the so-called 'Glorious Revolution'. The present watercolour was made two years later, and so far the title on the newspaper has defied deciphering. 

In his later career, Dusart made a considerable number of lively, finished watercolors of this type, undoubtedly intended for sale as independent works of art. Most of them represent the sort of peasant subjects beloved of his teacher and chief inspiration, Adriaen van Ostade, but Dusart treated these subjects in a highly individual and rather more decorative manner, producing works like this, which make a significant and original contribution to late 17th-century Dutch drawing. For a more detailed discussion of Dusart's watercolors of this type, see William W. Robinson, Bruegel to Rembrandt. Dutch and Flemish Drawings from the Maida and George Abrams Collection, exh. cat., London, British Museum, et al., 2002-3, cat. nos. 89-91.

We are grateful to Dr. Susan Anderson for kindly providing information on the various related drawings.

1. Frankfurt, Städel, inv. 3689; Haarlem, Teylers Museum, inv. no. S 20

2. Sale, Leipzig, C.G. Boerner, 9-10 May 1930, lot 133

3. Sale, Paris, Sotheby's, 1 April 2015, lot 101