Figures at a well beside cottages

This sketch belongs to the very large number of drawings made by Van Goyen dated 1651 to 1653 (see note to lot 39). Similar scenes with watermills can be found elsewhere in his œuvre, for instance in a drawing in the Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin, dated to the 1640s (Beck, op. cit., no. 586, ill.).