Lot Essay
Jan Arends, draughtsman and printmaker, was born in Dordrecht in 1738. He is mainly known for the topographical views he executed on the Isle of Walcheren when he lived in Middelburg, capital of the Province of Zeeland. He worked there from circa 1770 to 1785, possibly until 1787. He is best known for a series of sixteen sets with views of country seats and houses on Walcheren, of which the earliest are dated 1771. The set of nine views of the Huis te Oostkapelle dated 1772 was sold in these Rooms, 13 November 1995, lot 223 (now in the Collection of the Koninklijk Zeeuwsch Genootschap der Wetenschappen, on loan to the Rijksarchief Zeeland, Middelburg), is closely comparable in subject, style and handling to this and the following lot. In 1785-7 Arends returned to Dordrecht, where he died in poverty in 1805. This and the following lot are the sixth and tenth views from a set of twenty of the country house De Dolphyn and its gardens dated between 1772 and 1777, of which others are in the Rijksarchief Zeeland, Middelburg and in a Dutch private collection. As Martin van den Broeke has kindly pointed out, De Dolphyn was built by Willem Lievensz. van Vrijberghe circa 1670. In 1685 it was acquired by Steven Schorer, whose descendants owned it until 1895, when it was demolished. In the years the set was made, 1772-77, De Dolphyn was owned by Willem Schorer, who planted the rococo garden shown and whose initials can be seen on the grass in lot 195. M. van den Broeke and jonkheer H.W.M. van der Wyck will include this and the following lot in their forthcoming publication on the artist.