A Porcupine

Pieter Holsteijn the Younger was a Dutch glass painter and engraver from Haarlem who worked also in Zwolle and Munster. He was trained by his father, Pieter Holsteijn the Elder. This charming drawing of a porcupine depicts the animal in profile facing left on a small patch of ground. The remainder of the sheet consists of a thin layer of watercolor through which the page is visible. The artist's monogram sits in the lower right-hand corner. This format was common for Holsteijn, known for his series of hundreds of bird studies recording the collection of exotic birds owned by Agnes Block (1629-1704). One drawing from this group, Study of a Crane, also depicts the subject silhouetted against a blank page facing left and is in the Morgan's collection (1985.113).