Lot 31: Jan de Bisschop , Amsterdam 1628 - 1671 The Hague study of a seated allegorical female figure, in profile to the right Two shades of brown wash over black chalk, within brown ink framing lines

Two shades of brown wash over black chalk, within brown ink framing lines

measurements note 235 by 189 mm

Ithaca, New York, Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, Dutch Drawings of the Seventeenth Century from a Collection, 1979, cat. no. 44

Emile E. Wolf;
sale, Amsterdam, Christie's, 25 November 1991, lot 87;
Jacobus A. Klaver, Amsterdam

PROPERTY FROM THE COLLECTION OF THE LATE JACOBUS A. KLAVER, AMSTERDAM
Although the source for this figure is not known, it must belong to the group of studies made by Jan de Bisschop after antique sculpture or more recent Italian prototypes. The artist executed no fewer than a hundred etchings after antique sculpture, which he published in two volumes in 1668 and 1669 as Signorum veterum Icones, but it seems he never actually went to Italy himself and based all these prints on drawings and prints made by other artists. Although he was an amateur artist, and his main career was as a lawyer in the court at the Hague and secretary to Constantijn Huygens the Younger, his drawings and prints, both after antique and renaissance sculpture and paintings and in the landscape genre, are of the greatest quality and delicacy. For further information on de Bisschop's copies after Italian and classical models, see the exhibition catalogue, Episcopius. Jan de Bisschop (1628-1671), advocaat en tekenaar.υ1 1. Amsterdam, Museum het Rembrandthuis, 1992, pp. 38-63