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Lot Essay
Dessinée lorsque l’artiste avait 72 ans, cette feuille signée et datée est un parfait exemple de marine très aboutie destiné au marché que pouvait imaginer Bakhuizen. Est ici représenté une chasse à la baleine avec à l’arrière-plan une flotte probablement d’Amsterdam, les armoiries du navire semblant désigner les trois croix de la ville. Le dessin représente la chasse dans ses moindres détails : de l’action au premier-plan jusqu’aux personnages errant sur la glace à l’arrière-plan. La feuille est à rapprocher d’une peinture à l’huile mesurant 97,8 x 123 cm., signée et datée « LBakhs […] A 16 [?]» dépeignant une chasse similaire actuellement conservée au Kendall Whaling Museum, Sharon, Massachusetts (G. de Beer, Ludolf Backhuysen (1630-1708). Sein Leben und Werk, Zwolle, 2002, no 80, fig. 158). De tels dessins et peintures témoignent de la popularité grandissante de la chasse à la baleine chez les Hollandais qui chassaient dans l’Arctique depuis le début du XVIIe siècle.
Drawn when the artist was aged 72 and prominently signed and dated, this sheet is an excellent example of Bakhuizen’s highly finished maritime drawings that were intended for the market. Shown here is a whale hunt, with in the background a fleet of flutes, possibly from Amsterdam as the coat of arms on the ship to the left seems to show the city’s three crosses. The drawing depicts the hunt in its finest detail; from the action in the foreground to the minute figures in the background roaming on the ice. The sheet finds is closely comparable to an oil painting, measuring 97.8 by 123.2 cm, signed and dated ‘LBakhs[…]A 16[?]’, showing a whale hunt in a similar composition, now in the Kendall Whaling Museum, Sharon, Massachusetts (G. de Beer, Ludolf Backhuysen (1630-1708). Sein Leben und Werk, Zwolle, 2002, no. 80, fig. 158). Paintings and drawings like these are testimony to the increased popularity of whale hunting among the Dutch, who had been hunting in the Arctic from the early 17th Century.
Drawn when the artist was aged 72 and prominently signed and dated, this sheet is an excellent example of Bakhuizen’s highly finished maritime drawings that were intended for the market. Shown here is a whale hunt, with in the background a fleet of flutes, possibly from Amsterdam as the coat of arms on the ship to the left seems to show the city’s three crosses. The drawing depicts the hunt in its finest detail; from the action in the foreground to the minute figures in the background roaming on the ice. The sheet finds is closely comparable to an oil painting, measuring 97.8 by 123.2 cm, signed and dated ‘LBakhs[…]A 16[?]’, showing a whale hunt in a similar composition, now in the Kendall Whaling Museum, Sharon, Massachusetts (G. de Beer, Ludolf Backhuysen (1630-1708). Sein Leben und Werk, Zwolle, 2002, no. 80, fig. 158). Paintings and drawings like these are testimony to the increased popularity of whale hunting among the Dutch, who had been hunting in the Arctic from the early 17th Century.