Cornelis van Noorde

With Kunsthandel R. de Jong, Haarlem, 1981,
from whom purchased by A.M. ('Ton') van den Broek (1932-1995), Haarlem (bears his collector's mark, verso, not in Lugt)

The twin dating on the reverse of this unusual drawing fits well with the rather surprising imagery and combination of media, suggesting that the drawing must have been made in two stages.  The red chalk figure study, though rare in Van Noorde's surviving oeuvre, is a drawing of a type that is not so unusual in 18th-century Dutch art, if perhaps more often a little earlier in the century (in, for example, the drawings of artists such as Bernard Picart).  To combine such a figure study, as here, with elements of topographical landscape and allegorical iconography executed in an entirely different technique, is, however, extremely unusual, suggesting that Van Noorde returned to his original figure study and adapted it to a different purpose, as part of what seems to be a design for an allegorical representation of the River Spaarne.