Josua de Grave* (1643-1712)

A View of Chantilly, near Paris

Details

Josua de Grave* (1643-1712)
A View of Chantilly, near Paris
inscribed and dated '1: Gentelly: Bij Parijs: 1667: 9: m 30: d 2: Bisestard:' and numbered '1:' and '2:'
black chalk, pen and brown ink, brown and gray wash, pen and brown ink framing lines, watermark a lion in a crowned coat-of-arms over an R
13 x 3 in. (96 x 331 mm.)

Provenance

Christie's, lot 12 (9 shillings, as Hollar), according to an inscription on the mount.

Lot Essay

Valentijn Klotz (c.1650-after 1718) and de Grave are known to have been active as draughtsmen travelling with the army of the Northern Dutch States when fighting with the French in the South of the Netherlands in 1674-6. Both artists executed numerous topographical views there and in France, often unsigned but bearing very similar inscriptions, causing difficulties in distinguishing the two hands. The present drawing may be compared to De Grave's similarly extended view of Maastricht, signed and dated 1671, in an Amsterdam private Collection, J. Giltay, Le Cabinet d'un Amateur, Dessins flamands et hollandais des XVIe et XVIIe sicles d'une collection prive d'Amsterdam, exhib. cat., Boymans van Beuningen Museum, Rotterdam and elsewhere, 1976-7, no. 70, pl. 60. De Grave executed that view while on his way back from Paris to The Hague. The present lot was drawn before the artist travelled around Paris.