Cornelis Dusart

Sale, London, Christie's, 2 July 1996, lot 291

Although he died at the age of only 44, Dusart long outlived his teacher and chief source of inspiration, Adriaen van Ostade, and inherited his master's drawings, along with those of Ostade's short-lived brother, Isack, in 1685.  During the following decade or so, Dusart made a considerable number of lively, finished watercolours of this type, undoubtedly intended for sale as independent works of art. Most of them represent the sort of peasant subjects so beloved of Ostade, but Dusart treated these subjects in a highly individual and rather more decorative manner, producing works like this, which make a significant and original contribution to late 17th-century Dutch drawing. For a more extensive discussion of Dusart's watercolours, see William W. Robinson's illuminating entries in the catalogues of the 1991-2 and 2002-3 exhibitions of the Maida and George Abrams collection.¹

1.  Seventeenth-Century Dutch Drawings. A Selection from the Maida and George Abrams Collection, Amsterdam, Rijksprentenkabinet, and Vienna, New York and Cambridge, MA, 1991-2, no. 98; Bruegel to Rembrandt. Dutch and Flemish Drawings from the Maida and George Abrams Collection, exh.cat., London, British Museum, and Paris and Cambridge, MA, 2002-3, nos. 89-91