Jacob Cats

Born in Altona, near Hamburg, at a young age Cats was brought by his parents to live in Amsterdam. In early 1759, he found employment in the wall-decoration workshop of a certain Jan Hendrik Troost van Groenendoelen, and in May 1762 he set up his own business, producing, with considerable success, the painted wall-hangings that were so popular in Amsterdam interiors of the period. Eventually, however, this fashion began to decline, and Cats then turned his hand to the production of highly finished landscape drawings and watercolours such as this, an art in which he became the leading figure in late-18th century Holland.

The popularity of Cats’s finished drawings was such that he often repeated and adapted his compositions, and this one is no exception. As Gajus Scheltema has kindly informed us, some two years after he made the present drawing, Cats executed two further, more highly finished versions of the same composition, one also monochrome and one in watercolour, both approximately twice as large and this, and with somewhat different staffage.¹ Fascinatingly, the present drawing is lightly squared in black chalk in certain areas, primarily the architecture; although this is, of course, a technique used by artists through the ages when enlarging and transferring their compositions, it is not something that has previously been recorded in the case of a drawing by Cats. 

The watercolour version of this composition is inscribed on the reverse februarij, and seems to originate from a series of depictions of the months, executed in 1794/95, several others of which are known today. Like many of his contemporaries, Cats made various sets of finished drawings and watercolours, with unifying themes such as the seasons or the months. Within these series, the winter scenes were often the most animated and appealing; not surprisingly, eight of the top ten auction prices ever achieved for drawings by Cats have been for winter scenes.  

Regarding the provenance of this drawing, see also the note to the previous lot.

1. The monochrome drawing sold, Paris, Beaussant & Lefèvre, 11 October 2019, in lot 3 (with another), and now in a Dutch private collection; the watercolour formerly with Nathalie Motte Masselink, Paris, and now in a New York private collection