Cornelis Saftleven

With Arthur Jeffress, London (as School of Teniers);
W. Ropner

Two horizontal creases across top. Light brown mark around all four sides, just inside edge of sheet, from old, acidic mount. Paper slightly discoloured throughout, with a few light brown stains and spots towards top. Minor tears and losses, bottom right edge. Strips of brown paper stuck to all four edges, verso. Framed.
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This remarkable drawing is closely comparable with a group of six sheets in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, all of which show similar groups of diabolical figures.  Several of the Amsterdam drawings are on the same large scale as the present work, and they are extremely similar in handling.¹ None of these drawings is signed, but their attribution is not in doubt.  The figure - and above all facial - types, the handling of the chalk, the addition of small accents in ink wash, and the subject itself all tie this drawing, and its six relations in Amsterdam, very strongly to Cornelis.

Scenes of witchcraft and allegories incorporating animals, birds or imaginary diabolical figures form an important part of Cornelis Saftleven's painted oeuvre, but drawings of these subjects are relatively rare. One, formerly in the Emile Wolf Collection, New York, was sold in 2000.² Though deriving from the earlier tradition of artists such as Hieronymus Bosch, subjects of this type enjoyed continuing popularity in the Netherlands during the 17th century.

1. W. Schulz, Cornelis Saftleven 1607-1681, Berlin/New York 1981, pp. 76-7, nos. 18-23, no. 21, reproduced pl. 112
2.  Amsterdam, Sotheby's, 8 November 2000, lot 32