An old tree

This drawing exemplifies Bloemaert's fascination with exaggerated or distorted forms. Like the comparable Studies of two pollard willows in the Metropolitan Museum, New York (Bolten, op. cit., no. 1492), it was probably drawn to serve as a model for Bloemaert’s paintings. The New York drawing, for example, was later used in Bloemaert's Rest on the Flight into Egypt in the Hermitage, dated 1631 (M. Roethlisberger, Abraham Bloemaert and his Sons: Paintings and Prints, Doornspijk, 1993, no. 492), and similar trees appear in the Mercury and Argus of 1645 in the Liechtenstein Collection (Roethlisberger, no. 555) as well in some of Bloemaert's prints, such as the Eleven Landscapes engraved by Frederick Bloemaert (Roetlisberger, op. cit., nos. 566-576).