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Identification and Creation

Object Number
1980.75
People
Adriaen van de Velde, Dutch (Amsterdam, Netherlands 1636 - 1672 Amsterdam, Netherlands)
Title
Study of a Seated Boy
Classification
Drawings
Work Type
drawing
Date
17th century
Culture
Dutch
Persistent Link
https://hvrd.art/o/295134

Physical Descriptions

Medium
Black chalk on off-white antique laid paper, prepared with gray wash
Dimensions
26.2 x 18 cm (10 5/16 x 7 1/16 in.)
Inscriptions and Marks
  • exhibition label: on brown paper, in curatorial file, typeface: THE MINNEAPOLIS / INSTITUTE / OF ARTS / No. L70.89.57 / Lent By / The American Federation of Arts
  • label: on brown paper, in curatorial flie, printed label, blue ink, and graphite: A&S / FINE ARTS, INC. / (212) 776-6350 / [blue ink] #2 / [graphite] 25864.18
  • watermark: none

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History
[C. G. Boerner, Dusseldorf, 1964.] E. Trautscholdt, Dusseldorf, 1966. [Hyman Swetzoff Gallery, Boston]. Mr. and Mrs. Lester Francis Avnet, New York. [Sale, Sotheby Parke-Bernet, New York, 30 May 1979, lot 51, as Jan Josef Horemans]; to Maida and George Abrams, Boston (L. 3306, without their mark); Gift of Maida and George S. Abrams in memory of Jakob Rosenberg, 1980.75

Published Text

Catalogue
Drawings from the Age of Bruegel, Rubens, and Rembrandt: Highlights from the Collection of the Harvard Art Museums
Authors
William W. Robinson and Susan Anderson
Publisher
Harvard Art Museums (Cambridge, MA, 2016)

Catalogue entry no. 87 by William W. Robinson:

The painter and etcher Adriaen van de Velde specialized in pastoral landscapes, often with Italianate settings, but he also painted beaches, winter scenes, portraits, and biblical and mythological subjects. He ranks among the most versatile Dutch draftsmen of the seventeenth century. His extensive oeuvre of drawings includes landscape sketches, compositional projects for paintings and prints, a few finished watercolors, and detailed studies in chalk of figures and animals. More than fifty drawings relating to Van de Velde’s paintings and etchings have survived, affording a rare glimpse of the working process of a Dutch landscapist.1

Arnold Houbraken wrote that Adriaen went once a week into the countryside to paint and sketch landscapes and cattle.2 Houbraken neglected to mention that the artist also practiced his hand and gathered material for his pictures by working regularly in his studio, from both nude and clothed models.3 Van de Velde drew figure studies in black chalk, sometimes heightened with white chalk, as well as with red. He reproduced many of them, usually much reduced in scale, in his paintings. While he produced some studies, such as Study of a Seated Boy, with a particular composition in mind, others were set aside to build up a stock of motifs for use when the need arose.4

The Harvard drawing is preparatory for the young rider—presumably one of the biblical Jacob’s sons—astride a camel in The Departure of Jacob from Laban, dated 1663, in the Wallace Collection, London (Fig. 1).5 Incorporating several figures and dozens of animals, that large canvas is one of Van de Velde’s most ambitious compositions. A study for Jacob (Fig. 2) was executed, like the Harvard work, on paper prepared with a brownish gray wash, a support he used for several black-chalk figure drawings.6 On both sheets, Van de Velde drew separate, detailed studies of the riders’ booted legs. The grazing cow in the right foreground of the painting was based on a red-chalk drawing in the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles.7

Notes

1 On Van de Velde’s drawings, see Peter Schatborn, “‘De Hut’ van Adriaen van de Velde,” Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum, vol. 23 (1975): 159–65; William Robinson, “Preparatory Drawings by Adriaen van de Velde,” Master Drawings, vol. 17, no. 1 (Spring 1979): 3–23; Peter Schatborn, Figuurstudies, Nederlandse tekeningen uit de 17de eeuw (Amsterdam: Rijksmuseum, Rijksprentenkabinet; Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, 1981), pp. 116–19; and Angelique van den Eerenbeemd, Adriaen van de Velde: De Italianiserende tekeningen; Een onderzoek naar de herkomst van enkele motieven (Radboud University, Nijmegen, 2000) and Angelique van den Eerenbeemd, “De Italianiserende Tekeningen van Adriaen van de Velde,” Delineavit et Sculpsit, no. 30 (November 2006): 1–64.

2 Arnold Houbraken, De groote Schouburgh der Nederlantsche Konstschilders en Schilderessen, (first ed. 1718–21; reprint Amsterdam, 1943), vol. 3, p. 90.

3 On Van de Velde’s studies of nude models, see William Robinson, “Some Studies of Nude Models by Adriaen van de Velde,” Nationalmuseum Bulletin, vol. 17, no. 2 (1993): 53–66.

4 On Van de Velde’s use of figure studies, see Schatborn (1975), pp. 159–65; Robinson (1979), pp. 10–13; and Schatborn (1981), pp. 116–19. The study for Battus in his Mercury and Battus and the study for Joseph of Arimathaea in The Lamentation were clearly made with these paintings in mind; see Robinson (1979), cats. D-3 and D-16. On the other hand, a drawing of a woman washing her feet, with two separate studies of her head (idem, cat. D-13), belonged to Van de Velde’s stock of figure studies and was used in two different compositions, once in the sense of the original study and once in the reverse sense of the counterproof.

5 Adriaen van de Velde, The Departure of Jacob from Laban (Fig. 1), 1663. Oil on canvas. 133.5 × 180 cm. Signed and dated 1663. London, Wallace Collection, P80. John Ingamells, The Wallace Collection, Catalogue of Pictures IV: Dutch and Flemish (London, 1992), cat. P 80, pp. 380–82. The Harvard drawing was attributed to Jan Josef Horemans the Elder until Franklin W. Robinson pointed out, in conversation with the author, the connection to Van de Velde’s painting (Robinson, 1979, cat. D-2, p. 21).

6 Adriaen van de Velde, Male Rider Wearing a Turban (Fig. 2). Black chalk on brownish gray prepared paper. 291 × 187 mm. Private Collection, Europe. James Knox, “Dutch 17th Century Drawings,” The Antique Collector, vol. 47, no. 9 (Sept. 1976): 31–36, p. 36, repr.; Robinson (1979), cat. D-2a, p. 21. Other figure studies in black chalk, or black and white chalk, on gray prepared paper are included in Robinson (1979), cats. D-3, D-8 through D-10, and D-15; Peter Bowron, Bob P. Haboldt & Co., Dessins Anciens des écoles du Nord, françaises et italiennes (Paris and New York, 1991), cat. 38; George R. Goldner, Lee Hendrix and Kelly Pask, European Drawings 2: Catalogue of the Collections, J. Paul Getty Museum (Los Angeles, 1992), cat. 110, p. 256; and Robinson (1993), p. 64, fig. 14.

7 Goldner and Hendrix in Goldner et al., cat. 109, p. 254.

Figures

Fig. 1 Adriaen van de Velde, The Departure of Jacob from Laban

Fig. 2 Adriaen van de Velde, Male Rider Wearing a Turban

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line
Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Gift of Maida and George S. Abrams in memory of Jakob Rosenberg
Accession Year
1980
Object Number
1980.75
Division
European and American Art
Contact
am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu
Permissions

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Publication History

  • Ausgewählte Handzeichnungen aus vier Jahrhunderten, auct. cat., C. G. Boerner (Düsseldorf, 1964), cat. no. 71, n.p., repr. pl. 22, fig. 71 (as Jan Josef Horermans I)
  • Marian G. Ruggles, ed., Old Master Drawings from the Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Lester Francis Avnet, exh. cat., American Federation of Arts (New York, 1968), cat. no. 34, n.p., repr. (as Jan Josef Horermans I [the Elder])
  • William W. Robinson, "Preparatory Drawings by Adriaen van de Velde", Master Drawings (1979), vol. 17, no. 1, pp. 3-23, cat. no. D-2, p. 21, and under cat. no. D-2a
  • The Draughtsman at Work. Drawing in the Golden Century of Dutch Art, checklist (unpublished, 1980), no. 46
  • George R. Goldner and Lee Hendrix, European Drawings 2: Catalogue of the Collections, J. Paul Getty Museum (Malibu, CA, 1992), under cat. no. 109, p. 254 (n. 2)
  • John Ingamells, The Wallace Collection, Catalogue of Pictures IV: Dutch and Flemish, The Trustees of the Wallace Collection (London, 1992), under cat. no. P80, p. 382
  • Angelique van den Eerenbeemd, "Adriaen van de Velde: De Italianiserende tekeningen, een onderzoek naar de herkomst van enkele motieven" (2000), Radboud Universiteit, Bijlage 1, "Checklist van de niet-Italianiserende Tekeningen," cat. no. 83, n.p.
  • Stijn Alsteens, [Review] William W. Robinson, with Susan Anderson, "Drawings from the Age of Bruegel, Rubens, and Rembrandt: Highlights from the Collection of the Harvard Art Museums" (Winter 2015), p. 532
  • William W. Robinson and Susan Anderson, Drawings from the Age of Bruegel, Rubens, and Rembrandt: Highlights from the Collection of the Harvard Art Museums, Harvard Art Museums (Cambridge, MA, 2016), cat. no. 87, pp. 290-292, repr. p. 291

Exhibition History

  • The Draughtsman at Work. Drawing in the Golden Century of Dutch Art, Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, 11/21/1980 - 01/04/1981

Subjects and Contexts

  • Dutch, Flemish, & Netherlandish Drawings

Verification Level

This record has been reviewed by the curatorial staff but may be incomplete. Our records are frequently revised and enhanced. For more information please contact the Division of European and American Art at am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu