Lot 112: JACOB ESSELENS AMSTERDAM 1626 - 1687

pen and brown ink and wash over traces of black chalk

166 by 233mm

Kleur en Raffinement, Tekeningen uit de Unicorno Collectie, Amsterdam, Museum Het Rembrandthuis and Dordrecht, Dordrechts Museum, 1994-5, cat. no. 14.

J.Fred Bianchi, Amsterdam (bears his mark, verso, not in Lugt);
Professor Dr. I.Q. van Regteren Altena, Amsterdam;
Saam and Lily Nijstad, The Hague (Inv.nr. N77)

Esselens was not a full-time professional artist, and worked primarily as a velvet and silk merchant. As a result of these trading activities, he travelled widely, and unlike the modern business traveller, he seems to have been able to find plenty of time during these trips to make drawings: he has left us a large number of highly accomplished landscape drawings, many of them views of France, Germany and England (where he made naer het leven sketches that were later worked up for inclusion in the Atlas van der Hem). Given the decidedly Nordic nature of the landscape in this drawing, it is tempting to suggest that, like Allaert van Everdingen, Esselens' activity as a merchant also took him to Scandinavia, but the location seen here may also have been German. Another, equally coniferous mountain landscape was formerly in the Houthakker Collection (sold, Amsterdam, Sotheby Mak van Waay, 17 November 1975, lot 52), and two more were sold, Amsterdam, Christie's, 9 November 1998, lots 89-90.