A River Bank with Travellers (recto); A River Landscape (verso)

This comes from an album of some 230 studies which date from a journey made from the artist's home town Leiden to Arnhem and Nijmegen and then back to Amsterdam, in 1650-1. The drawings are mostly landscapes rapidly sketched on the trip. The numbering in the album in the upper right corner is probably not the artist's, though it is likely to be contemporary. The album was complete until the 1950s and single sheets have been sold in these Rooms, 25 November 1992, lot 578, illustrated, and from the Roesler Collection, Christie's, New York, 31 May 1990, lots 80-3, illustrated. Thirty more drawings from the album were in the Carel Goldschmidt Collection and sold at Christie's, New York, 12 January 1995, lots 220-49, all illustrated. A fuller description of the album and related literature can be found in that catalogue. As Dr. Beck (loc. cit.) points out, the recto of the present lot is completed at the left by the verso of page 80 of the album, while the verso of the present lot would seem to complete the recto of page 82 (lot 232 in the Goldschmidt sale).
This drawing shows a view of the Rhine just west of Arnhem on the road towards Oosterbeek, seen from a slightly different angle.