View of a Watermill

A painter and draftsman, Hulswit studied with Pieter Barbiers I (1717-1780) and his son the landscape painter Pieter Barbiers II (1749-1842). After a brief tenure as manager of a painted wallpaper factory, Hulswit held a position with a tax office from 1796 until 1807, after which he was able to devote himself to his art, art dealing, and collecting. Encouraged to concentrate on landscapes, Hulswit developed a style that recalls the works of the seventeenth-century Dutch masters. Early in his career he painted and drew after nature in and around Amsterdam, later turning to composed views. He taught at academies in Amsterdam and Antwerp, and his pupils included Pieter George Westenberg (1791-1873). This drawing is the first by Hulswit to enter the Morgan's collections, and it strengthens Library's holdings of Dutch artists of the late eighteenth century, joining works by Jacob van Strij (1756-1815) and a drawing by Hendrik Kobell (1751-1779) in the Thaw collection. "View of a Watermill" will be included in the forthcoming catalogue raisonne of the drawings of Jan Hulswit being prepared by Albert Elen, who has confirmed the drawing's authorship and proposes it as a study for a painting in a private Dutch collection.