Master Works on Paper from Five Centuries
Master Works on Paper from Five Centuries
A castle by a bridge
Auction Closed
January 26, 04:31 PM GMT
Estimate
10,000 - 15,000 USD
Lot Details
Description
Herman Saftleven
Rotterdam 1609 - 1685 Utrecht
A castle by a bridge
Black chalk and gray wash, within pen and brown ink framing lines
285 by 235 mm; 11 3/16 by 9¼ in.
Although Saftleven is perhaps most immediately associated with the tightly executed, very finished drawings that make up the greatest part of his drawn oeuvre, there are also a smaller number of much more freely drawn landscapes, often, like this example, relatively large in scale. These more spontaneous drawings, which are hard to date but may perhaps originate from the earlier part of the artist’s career, include some of his most appealing and impressive drawings. A signed example, depicting the bridge in Ghent, is in Copenhagen1 and a fine woodland scene of this type is in Berlin.2
1. Copenhagen, Statens Museum for Kunst Kobberstiksamling, inv. no. Tu-86-3; W. Schulz, Herman Saftleven 1609-1685, Berlin/New York 1982, pp. 293-4, no. 616
2. Berlin, SMPK, Kupferstichkabinett, inv. no. 5354; Schulz, op. cit., p. 360, no. 915, fig. 135