Design for a Title Page: Heraclitus and Democritus leaning over a Table with a Globe flanked by an Owl and a Monkey

Details

Jan Josefsz. van Goyen (1596-1656)
Design for a Title Page: Heraclitus and Democritus leaning over a Table with a Globe flanked by an Owl and a Monkey
signed, dated and inscribed 'I.V.GOIEN A^o 1623 den.24. September' (strengthened)
black chalk, black chalk framing lines, fragmentary watermark Strasburg lily
114 x 166 mm.

Provenance

Gerard Meijer, Abbenbroek, 1977.
Lodewijk Houthakker (his mark, not in Lugt).

Literature

H.-U. Beck, Jan van Goyen 1596-1656, III, Doornspijk, 1987, p. 39, no. 55B, illustrated.
P. Fuhring, Design into Art, Drawings for Architecture and Ornament, The Lodewijk Houthakker Collection, London, 1989, II, p. 760, no. 1100, illustrated p. 726.

Exhibited

Amsterdam, Kunsthandel Gebr. Douwes, Esaias van de Velde/Jan van Goyen, 1981, no. 14.

Lot Essay

As Beck and Fuhring (loc. cit.) point out, this was probably done for a Liber Amicorum, while the artist's picture dated 1623 of a beach scene (H.-U. Beck, Jan van Goyen 1596-1656, II, Amsterdam, 1973, p. 109, no. 222) includes the same scene. This would seem to be the artist's earliest dated drawing.

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