Hendrick Avercamp

Anonymous sale, Amsterdam, Sotheby's, 15 December 1969, lot 252;

Professor Dr Drs Anton C.R. Dreesmann, Laren, inv. no B20,

by whose executors sold, London, Christie's, The Dr Anton C.R. Dreesmann Collection, part III, 11 April 2002, lot 679, when acquired by Marianne Dreesmann,

Mrs Marianne L. Dreesmann-van der Spek, Laren, inv. no B034,

her sale, Paris, Sotheby's, 12 July 2021, lot 69

South Bend, Indiana, The Snite Museum of Art, On Loan from Holland, A Dutch Treat, Selections of XVII and XVIII Century Dutch Art from the Collection of Dr A.C.R. Dreesmann; A Bicentennial Celebration of Relations between the United States and the Netherlands, 1982, cat. 14

Winter scenes such as this unquestionably constitute Hendrick Avercamp's best known, and best loved, subjects, combining a real sense of the atmosphere of winter with a mood of serene contemplation.

Drawings by Avercamp are extremely rare: fewer than 200 survive, nearly one third of those in the Royal Collection at Windsor Castle, and just four substantial drawings by the artist have been sold at auction in the last quarter century.¹ Marijn Schapelhouman, writing in the 2009-10 Amsterdam and Washington exhibition catalogue, gives a detailed description of the different types of drawings that he made, which range from rapidly sketched studies of single figures to highly finished watercolour compositions, some of them preparatory studies for prints.² 

^1.New York, Sotheby’s, 12 January 2021, lot 97; London, Christie’s, 10 July 2014, lot 40; New York, Sotheby’s, 25 January 2007, lot 71; Amsterdam, Sotheby's, 8 November 2000, lot 89.

^2.M. Schapelhouman, 'The Drawings, Reflections on an Oeuvre,' in Hendrick Avercamp, Master of the Ice Scene, Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, and Washington DC, National Gallery of Art, 2009-10, pp. 84-117, figs. 108-110.