Willem II van Royen | Two Silver Pheasants and a Black-crowned Night Heron in a landscape, watercolour, 1735

Willem II van Royen

Watercolour of two Silver Pheasants and a Black-crowned Night Heron in a landscape, 1735

watercolour and gouache over traces of black chalk, within black chalk framing lines, 303 x 436mm., signed and dated lower right "W V ROYEN 1735", also dated 1735 on lower left, inscribed in brown ink on verso: "dese vpgels sijn bij d: edl: aghtb: Heer de Heer Theodorus deLeeuw | na het Leven getekent inde Lust plaas van sijn edelen genaamt | elsenburg door Mr Willem van Rojen 1735"

A FINE ORIGINAL WATERCOLOUR, and one of only three known examples by van Royen that can be linked to a specific patron. As recorded by the inscription on the verso, these birds were seen by van Royen in the collection of Theodorus de Leeuw (1679-1744) at his Elsenburg country house (near Maarssen). There are two other recorded works tied to the patronage relationship between de Leeuw and van Royen: another watercolour of birds by van Royen (sold., Dordrecht, Mak, 5 October 1993, lot 37), and an eighteenth-century sale record of a van Royen painting of birds on the terraces of Elsenburg (sold, Amsterdam, P. van der Schley/J. Yver, 18 July 1786, lot 277). There are relatively few known drawings by van Royen, though these include works dated as early as 1711 (Sotheby's London, 19 June 1973, 62).

PROVENANCE:

Exhibited: Leeuwarden, Museum Het Princessehof, "Oude tekeningen uit drie eeuwen; Collectie Hans van Leeuwen", 1977, catalogue number 46; Amsterdam/Dordrecht, 1994-1995, catalogue number 42, reproduced in colour, p. 6