Old Master and British Works on Paper

Herman Saftleven

A Boatyard with small vessels hauled ashore

Lot Closed

July 6, 12:35 PM GMT

Estimate

2,000 - 3,000 GBP

Lot Details

Description

Herman Saftleven

Rotterdam 1609 - 1685 Utrecht

A Boatyard with small vessels hauled ashore

Point of the brush and grey and brown wash, over black chalk;

signed with monogram, and dated, lower right: HSL 1654

106 by 240 mm

Berlin, Kupferstichkabinett (L.1606, inventory number KdZ 13850, both on old backing), deaccessioned some time after 1931 (L.2482, on old backing);
Sir Bruce Ingram (1877-1963), Chesham (L.1405a),
where acquired by Michael Ingram, 1951 (bears his collector's mark, not in Lugt),
by whose executors sold, London, Sotheby's, The Ingram Collection: Drawings and Watercolours from the Collection of the Late Michael Ingram, 8 December 2005, lot 15;
sale, London, Sotheby's, 4 December 2020, lot 45

E. Bock and J Rosenberg, Die Zeichnungen in den Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin, die niederländischen Meister, 2 Vols., Frankfurt 1931, p. 268, inv. no. 13850
W. Schulz, Herman Saftelven 1609-1685, Berlin/New York 1982, p. 366, cat. no. 937 (as destroyed during World War II)

Boatyards are quite a common subject for Herman Saftleven. Considering that groups of boats, brought ashore or resting in harbour, feature prominently in his Rhine landscapes, it is possible that he used studies such as this as aids when composing his paintings. Two other monogrammed studies of boatyards, in the same media, are in the Musée de Beaux-Arts, Brussels, inv. nos. 3158 and 3175.¹

1. Schulz, op. cit., p. 242, cat. nos. 391 and 393, figs. 94-5