Nicolaes Pietersz. Berchem

A deer hunt

Auction Closed

July 6, 10:38 AM GMT

Estimate

40,000 - 60,000 GBP

Lot Details

Description

Property from a European Private Collection

Nicolaes Pietersz. Berchem

Haarlem 1620 - 1683 Amsterdam

A deer hunt

Black chalk, within brown ink framing lines;

bears initials, lower right, in pencil: P.V.

241 by 387 mm

Ralph Willett (1719-1795) (according to an inscription on the verso);
possibly the artist Arnoldus Stevens;
sale, Amsterdam, van der Schley et al., Amsterdam, 7 December 1795, Kunstboek A, lot 71 ('Een Italiaansch Bergagtig Landschap, gestoffeert met Jagers; vlug met zwart kryt geteekent door N. Berchem'; sold for 1 guilder together with lot 72);
possibly Willem [?] T. Groen;
sale, Amsterdam, Gartman, 2 November 1813, Kunstboek KB [?], lot 29 ('Een boomryk Landschap, met een Hertenjagt, met zwart Kryt, door N. Berghem');
Thomas Dimsdale (1758-1823), London (L.2426);
probably with Samuel Woodburn (1786-1853), London;
Peregrine Francis Adelbert Cust, 6th Baron Brownlow (1899-1978), Belton House, Lincolnshire;
sale, London, Sotheby's, 14 July 1926, part of lot 79 ('Stag Hunt. Black chalk. And another'; probably bought by Parsons).
with Parsons, London,
from whom purchased by I.Q. van Regteren Altena (1899-1980) in October 1926 for 100 guilders (Inventory book: '219. t. C.P. Berchem hertenjacht');
his sale, London, Christie's, 10 July 2014, lot 57

A. Stefes, Nicolaes Pietersz. Berchem: Die Zeichnungen, PhD thesis, Bern 1997, no. II/132

When this large, animated and extremely well preserved sheet was sold, some years ago, from the Van Regteren Altena collection, it established a new auction record for a drawing by Berchem. Although the artist's drawings are not especially rare, the combination of scale, condition, compositional balance and unusual subject-matter mark this drawing out as one of the finest by Berchem to have appeared on the market in a generation. In its varied intensity of touch - still entirely visible, thanks to the drawing's excellent state of conservation - and its exceptional inventiveness in terms of the poses of the animals and the flickering lighting, this drawing encapsulates the best of Berchem's abilities as a draughtsman.

The drawing has been dated by Annemarie Stefes (loc. cit.) to circa 1657-58, and is one of a number with similar hunting themes. Two, in the British Museum, represent a deer hunt and a boar hunt¹, and the latter of these, though sketchier than the present drawing, was used, in reverse, as the basis for a 1659 painting by Berchem now in the Mauritshuis, The Hague.² Though not quite close enough in composition to be considered directly preparatory, our drawing is in a general way related to the painting of A stag hunt in the National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin, also dated to 1655-60.³

1. London, British Museum, inv. Oo,10.197 and 1836,0811.47 respectively

2. Inv. 12

3. Inv. NGI.245; H. Potterton, Illustrated Summary Catalogue of Paintings, Dublin, 1981, p. 10; Fig. 1