Lot Essay
The attribution to Jan van der Vaart was kindly suggested by Peter Schatborn on the basis of a photograph. Mr. Schatborn kindly pointed out that the drawing represents a view from Millbank in London looking towards Westminster Abbey, which is shown without the towers designed by Sir Christopher Wren but only completed in 1745, and with Lambeth Palace seen across the Thames. The two chimneys of the palace can also be seen in the foreground of a prospect of London and Westminster taken from Lambeth by Wenceslaus Hollar (A. Hind, W. Hollar and his views of London, London, 1922, pl. XXIV). Another landscape drawing by van der Vaart is in the British Museum (L. Binyon, Catalogue of Drawings by British Artists and Artists of Foreign Origin...in the British Museum, London, 1907, IV, p. 256).
We are grateful to Peter Schatborn for his help in cataloguing this lot.
We are grateful to Peter Schatborn for his help in cataloguing this lot.