Adriaen van de Velde

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Adriaen van de Velde

1636-1672

Rear View of a Cow Resting

Red chalk on paper; framing line in brow ink, with gold border applied directly on paper of drawing.

4 5/8 x 6 1/4 inches (117 x 158 mm)

Purchased by Pierpont Morgan (1837-1913) in 1909.

III, 226 (2)

Inscription:

Signed with initials at left, in faded brown ink, "A.V.V:".

Provenance:

Sir John Charles Robinson (1824-1913), London and Edinburgh (Lugt 1433); Charles Fairfax Murray (1849-1919), London and Florence; from whom purchased through Galerie Alexandre Imbert, Rome, in 1909 by Pierpont Morgan (1837-1913), New York (no mark; see Lugt 1509); his son, J. P. Morgan, Jr. (1867-1943), New York.

Notes:

Watermark: none visible through lining.
The drawing is one of six red chalk studies of cows by the artist owned by The Library. The present sheet is the only one of the six that was unsigned.
This study is connected with several of van de Velde's paintings. It was used, both in the same sense and in reverse, for the artist's picture of "Cows in a Meadow", signed and dated 1658, in the Gemäldegalerie, Berlin (Inv. no. 903A); and for the "Farm and Cattle with Figures", also signed and dated 1658, in the collection of the Duke of Westminster, London; as well as for at least three separate versions of "Mercury and Argus"-dated in consecutive years 1663, 1664, and 1665-the earliest in the collection of the Prince of Liechtenstein, Vaduz (Inv. no. 689), the second formerly on the London art market (Sotheby's. London,, 23 March 1960, lot 48), and the last in the Dutuit collection, Petit Palais, Paris. A preliminary pen-and-ink study for the Mercury and Argus compositions is preserved in the Prentenkabinet der Rijksuniversiteit, Leiden (Inv. no. 634).

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Velde, Adriaen van de

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