Jan de Bisschop

Sale, Amsterdam, Sotheby's, 14 November 1988, lot 63 (as Jacob van der Ulft);
sale, Amsterdam, Christie's, 10 November 1997, lot 89 (as Jacob van der Ulft)

Suffused with his signature warm golden glow, created using golden brown ink and wash, this is a fine example of an Italianate landscape by Bisschop.  While the artist produced numerous drawings that depicted the Italian campagna, he probably never travelled to Italy, relying instead on other artists’ compositions as his inspiration and source material.  Bisschop's artistic relationship with Jacob van der Ulft, to whom this drawing was formerly attributed, is particularly interesting.  At various times, both artists seem to have copied the works of the other, and it is often very hard to establish the original source of any of their images of Italy.  Bisschop's drawings are, however, often rather more animated in handling than those of Van der Ulft, and the extensive, lively use of black chalk underdrawing, as seen here, is much more typical of Bisschop. 

Like several other very talented Dutch landscape artists of the second half of the seventeenth century, Jan de Bisschop's primary profession was not that of artist, although he appears to have studied with Bartholomeus Breenbergh, whose style had a great influence on him.  In 1649, the year after his earliest dated drawing was executed, Bisschop enrolled as a law student in Leiden, where he remained until 1652.  Thereafter he moved to The Hague to take up a legal appointment at the Court. Bisschop continued his activities as a draughtsman during his professional career and made a large number of drawings of the area around The Hague.