Willem van de Velde the Elder

Michael Robinson suggested that this might perhaps be an early work by Adriaen van de Velde, but convincing comparisons have not been found to support this suggestion.

In an album of drawings primarily by William van de Velde the Elder and the Younger

Laid down on paper. The sheet has been made up in the lower centre and lower right edges. There are some areas of foxing and an old vertical crease to the left centre of the sheet. Otherwise in good condition with the medium fresh.
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This drawing, with its unusual contrast between the rather slight graphite landscape and the carefully drawn pen figures, can be compared with a group of five similarly executed shore scenes, at Greenwich, which the late Michael Robinson suggested may have been made by Willem van de Velde the Elder in the mid 1650s, in preparation for his pen-paintings or grisailles.¹

1.  M.S. Robinson, A Catalogue of the drawings in the National Maritime Museum made by the Elder and the Younger Willem van de Velde, Cambridge 1974, vol. II, pp. 5-6, 156-7, nos. 774-778