Lot Essay
The monogram on this drawing was previously thought to be that of Frans Fransz. Hals. As Hofstede de Groot pointed out in Thieme-Becker's Kunstlexikon, Bredius was the first to identify the signature as that of the Middelburg artist Francois Ryckhals (De Schilder Francois Ryckhals, Oud Holland, 1917, XXXV, pp.1-11).
A drawing of cattle in a landscape in the same technique and with the same signature is in the Gemeentearchief, Haarlem (Bredius, op.cit., pl. to p. 11). Dr. Hans-Ulrich Beck more recently published further drawings by the artist, most in the same technique (Künstler um Jan van Goyen, Maler und Zeichner, Doornspijk, 1991, pp.365-7, nos. 1037-49a)
A drawing of cattle in a landscape in the same technique and with the same signature is in the Gemeentearchief, Haarlem (Bredius, op.cit., pl. to p. 11). Dr. Hans-Ulrich Beck more recently published further drawings by the artist, most in the same technique (Künstler um Jan van Goyen, Maler und Zeichner, Doornspijk, 1991, pp.365-7, nos. 1037-49a)