Herman Saftleven

17th Century Dutch Old Master Drawing by Herman Saftleven Rhine Landscape

Circa 1660

No Dutch draughtsman ever captured the atmosphere of the rural countryside of Holland with the same atmospheric and engaging simplicity that Van Goyen achieved in drawings such as this. Indeed, his landscapes were seminal in the development of the genre. The present sketch conveys a striking sense of movement within the natural landscape, conveyed by the deftly applied strokes of chalk, from which the artist’s hand can be sensed. The composition is characteristic of his work, with the low horizon affording significance to the broad sky and the soaring birds within. This feeling of windswept motion powerfully evokes the expansive Dutch farmland with which he was evidently preoccupied. 1. Jan van Goyen...

Ferdinand von Kobell (1740–1799) Figures by a River at the Edge of a Wood Black chalk, stump and white chalk highlights, on paper 19 x 28.8 cm Signed and dated lower right: 1777 P...

France 18th Century, Pastorale (Arcadian Landscape) Black chalk and heightenings of white gouache on blue-grey paper 19 x 31 cm Framed : 34.5 x 46.5 cm The atmosphere and the subje...

French School, early 19th century Battle Scene between Greeks and Ottomans, circa 1820–1830 Pencil and brown wash on paper, 30 × 46 cm Unsigned Provenance: Former collection of P...

We would like to thank Madame Beck-Saiello for confirming the autograph nature of this drawing after an in-person examination. It was probably during an excursion in the countryside near Avignon that Claude-Joseph Vernet executed this drawing, enhanced with pen and brown ink, depicting a mansion on a hilltop overlooking a small village with geometric shapes. 1. Joseph Vernet, a painter influenced by Italy Claude-Joseph Vernet was born in Avignon in 1714, the son of Antoine Vernet (1689-1753), an artisan painter of architectural decorations, coach panels, and the like. He moved to the studio of Philippe Sauvan (1697-1792), a leading history painter in Avignon, and then worked with Jacques Viali (active 1681-1745), a decorative, landscape, and marine painter in Aix-en-Provence. Vernet's first recorded paintings were decorative overdoors executed in 1731 in the Aix townhouse of the marquise de Simiane. In 1734, Joseph de Seytres, marquis de Caumont, a leading amateur in Avignon, sponsored Vernet to make a study trip to Italy to complete his artistic education and to draw antiquities for his patron. As Avignon was a papal territory in Vernet's day, he also had a number of useful introductions among influential churchmen when he arrived in Rome. Vernet was soon at home in the French community there, and he was encouraged by Nicolas Vleughels (1668-1737), director of the Académie de France in Rome, even though the young painter had no official affiliation with the royal institution. He likely entered the studio of the French marine painter Adrien Manglard...

In this drawing, inspired by his stay in Naples in 1765, William Marlow presents us with a view of Cape Posillipo, to the west of Naples, an essential stage during the Grand Tour. Th...

This Rocky Landscape with Trees and the Ruins of a Temple is a drawing by Giulio Parigi, an eclectic and prolific artist of the Medici court. An engraver, architect, furniture and je...

The attribution to Jan de Bisschop has been confirmed by the RKD with the following comment: "We base this attribution on the dark washes, the subject represented and the monogram". ...

Attributed to Jan VAN DER STRAET, called Stradanus (Bruges, 1523 – Florence, 1605) Hunting Scene Pen and brown ink, brown wash and white heightening on prepared brown paper, 26 × 31 cm Unsigned Provenance Private collection, France This striking and highly accomplished drawing depicts a wild boar hunt in a wooded landscape, animated by numerous figures and animals. The dramatic energy of the foreground, where hounds and hunters engage the beast, is heightened by the bold use of white heightening, which models the forms and enlivens the surface. The background, structured by tall trees and populated with additional hunting scenes, lends the composition a theatrical depth. Attributed to Jan van der Straet, known as Stradanus, this work belongs to the artistic context of Medicean Florence, where the artist developed an important body of hunting scenes intended for illustration and engraving. Influenced by Italian Renaissance models as well as his native Flemish culture, Stradanus excelled in dynamic storytelling and elegant draftsmanship. The drawing may have been a preparatory study for one of the compositions from the celebrated Venationes Ferarum, Avium, Piscium series, engraved in Antwerp under the supervision of Philips Galle...

STEFANO DALL’ARZERE (Padua, circa 1520 – 1570) Saint Jerome Praying, with a Landscape in the Background Pen and brown ink, heightened with white over black chalk lines 15.5 x 12 cm...