Jan Peeters the Elder

Jan Peeters the Elder, a member of a notable artist family from Antwerp, is best known for his lively drawings of coastal and harbour scenes, both local and exotic. Whether he actually visited the places he depicted is, however, unclear: some of the views seem decidedly fanciful, and it does seem rather unlikely that Cairo really looked quite like this in the middle of the 17th century. Yet whether they were accurate or not, the views of these far-flung locations that were drawn and engraved by Peeters and others fed a great appetite amongst collectors in the Netherlands for these exotic images - a hunger that Peeters seems to have been more than happy to feed, with this dramatic, camel-filled vista. 

Very comparable in handling, and similarly inscribed, is a view of the Monastery of Montserrat, near Barcelona, now in the Fondation Custodia, Paris¹, and a view of Tel Aviv (Jaffa) was formerly in the Van Regteren Altena Collection.² 

1. Paris, Fondation Custodia, inv. 3629; see exhib. cat., op. cit., 1972, cat. 70, pl. 95

2. Sale, Amsterdam, Christie's, 10 December 2014, lot 147