Esaias van de Velde

With J. Wiegersma, Utrecht, 1941-2 (L.1552b);

With Gutekunst & Klipstein, Bern, 1952;

Sale, Amsterdam, Mak van Waay (H. Wiegersma collection and others), 15 December 1969, lot 326;

Sale, London, Sotheby's, 6 July 2010, lot 153

G.S. Keyes, Esaias van den Velde 1587 - 1630, Doornspijk 1984, cat. no. D 32, reproduced plate 324 

Utrecht, Gallery Wiegersma, Teekeningen van Nederlandsche en Vlaamsche Meesters uit de 16e en 17e eeuw, 1941-42, cat. no. 117;

Bern, Gutekunst & Klipstein, Holländische Zeichnungen des 17. Jahrhunderts, 1952, cat. no. 4;

Amsterdam, Gebr. Douwes Fine Art, 1981

The theme of brigands holding up travellers was one that Esaias depicted in a number of drawings and paintings. This subject, together with that of cavalry skirmishes, seems to have entered his repertoire after his move to The Hague in 1618, and in particular after the ending of the Twelve Years' Truce, in 1621. The resumption of the Eighty Years' War between Spain and the United Provinces must rapidly have brought back to the surface public thoughts of the regular battles, skirmishes and other sorts of lawlessness that had impinged on daily life so much during the years either side of 1600. 

In his 1984 monograph, Keyes identified some 40 paintings and 30 drawings of military and related subjects; in the present drawing, although the figure to the far right is kneeling and appealing to the robbers for mercy, the mood is less violent than in some of the other examples.