Figures by the city wall of Utrecht with the Bijlhouwertoren to the right

Details

Herman Saftleven (Rotterdam 1609-1685 Utrecht)
Figures by the city wall of Utrecht with the Bijlhouwertoren to the right
black chalk, additional pen and brown ink and brown wash by a later hand, pen and brown ink framing lines, watermark foolscap above three balls
279 x 218 mm.

Special notice

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Sale room notice

Dr. Wolfgang Schulz will include this drawing as no. 539a in the forthcoming second edition of his catalogue raisonné of the drawings of Herman Saftleven.

Dr. Schulz has kindly pointed out that the composition of the present lot was also used by Saftleven in a drawing now in the Koninklijk Huisarchief, The Hague (Schulz 409). The drawing cited in our catalogue entry (Schulz 358), of which there is also another version in The Hague (Schulz 410), shows the Bijlhouwertoren from the opposite direction to the present drawing.

Lot Essay

Dr. Wolfgang Schulz has kindly confirmed the attribution on studying the drawing in the original. Dr. Schulz notes that the pen and ink and wash appears not to be by Saftleven himself, but may have been applied by a contemporary printmaker in preparation for the transfer of the composition to the plate. However no print of the subject survives.
Another version of the composition is in the Rijksprentenkabinet, Amsterdam, W. Schulz, Herman Saftleven, Berlin, 1982, no. 358, fig. 103.
We are grateful to Dr. Schulz for his kind help in cataloguing this drawing.

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