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Lot Essay
Aert Schouman was a teacher at the art school of Dordrecht, his home town, and in 1751 he was appointed regent of the Art Academy in the Hague. He was a prolific and versatile artist, but natural history was his preferred subject and he is best known for his careful studies of animals and plants. A large number of his watercolors of birds and mammals, including exotic animals, survive, but portraits, genre scenes, and academic studies are rarer.
The artist’s academic studies derive from observation of live models, and the figures are always portrayed nude since the practice of copying dressed models was introduced in the academy in the Hague only later in the 19th Century. Dutch 18th Century studies of female nudes are extremely rare. Only three by Schouman, including the present drawing, have been published so far (Dumas, op. cit., pp. 149-151). One of these studies is signed and dated 1760 (R. Schleier, Neue Zeichnungen alter Meister, Münster, 1981, no. 85, ill.) and it is on the basis of that drawing that the other two can be securely ascribed to the artist.
The artist’s academic studies derive from observation of live models, and the figures are always portrayed nude since the practice of copying dressed models was introduced in the academy in the Hague only later in the 19th Century. Dutch 18th Century studies of female nudes are extremely rare. Only three by Schouman, including the present drawing, have been published so far (Dumas, op. cit., pp. 149-151). One of these studies is signed and dated 1760 (R. Schleier, Neue Zeichnungen alter Meister, Münster, 1981, no. 85, ill.) and it is on the basis of that drawing that the other two can be securely ascribed to the artist.