Willem Pietersz. Buytewech (Rotterdam 1591-1624)

A peasant girl from Alkmaar

Details

Willem Pietersz. Buytewech (Rotterdam 1591-1624)
A peasant girl from Alkmaar
signed 'buijtweke'
black chalk, pen and brown ink, brown ink framing lines
7 5/8 x 5 3/8 in. (19.5 x 13.5 cm.)

Provenance

Samuel van Huls (1675–1734); Jean Swart, The Hague, 17 May 1736, either lot 1914 ('une Laitiere, & une Revendeuse de Poisson'), lot 1915 ('un de même & un autre') or 1915 (une Paisanne vendant du beurre & un autre').
Jean-Marc (called John) Du Pan (1785-1838), Geneva (L. 1440), and by descent to his brother
Alex-Louis (called Jean-Louis) Du Pan; Bonnefons de Lavialle, Paris, 26 March 1840, lot 697 ('Buytenweek (Guillaume). 697. Une Paysanne hollandaise, au crayon, esquissé au bistre; signé Buitweke') or 698 ('Une Paysanne, au crayon, esquissé au bistre; signé Buitweke').
with Nicolaas Beets (1878-1963), Amsterdam; from whom purchased by I.Q. van Regteren Altena on 31 October 1925 for 300 guilders (Inventory book: '126. t. W. Buytewech boerinnetje').

Literature

E. Haverkamp Begemann, Willem Buytewech, Amsterdam, 1959, no. 92 and pp. 33, 144, 161 and 189.
E. Haverkamp Begemann, Willem Buytewech 1591-1624, exhib. cat., Rotterdam, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen and Paris, Fondation Custodia, 1974-75, p. 132, under no. 156.
F. Stampfle, Rubens and Rembrandt in their Century: Flemish and Dutch Drawings of the 17th Century from the Pierpont Morgan Library, exhib. cat., New York, The Pierpont Morgan Library, 1979, p. 87, under no. 53.
G.S. Keyes, Hollstein, XXIV, 'Salomon Savery to Gillis van Scheyndel', Amsterdam, 1980, p. 212, under no. 56.
J. Shoaf Turner, Dutch Drawings in the Pierpont Morgan Library: Seventeenth to Nineteenth Centuries, New York, 2006, under no. 48.
L. Widerkehr and H. Leeflang, New Hollstein, 'Jacob Matham Part III', Ouderkerk aan den Ijssel, 2008, p. 225, under no. 464.

Exhibited

Rotterdam, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, and Paris, Fondation Custodia, Willem Buytewech 1591-1624, 1974-75, no. 87 (catalogue by E. Haverkamp Begemann).

Engraved

Etched in reverse by Gillis van Scheyndel (active 1620-1654) in 1645, as the fourth in a series of eight prints (Hollstein 56).
In reverse by Jacob Matham (1571-1631), as the seventh in a series of twelve prints after Buytewech and Dirck Hals (1591-1656) (New Hollstein, 'Jacob Matham', III, no. 464).

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Lot Essay

A study for an etching which is one of a series of eight peasant girls representing different towns and regions of the Netherlands. Etched by Gillis van Scheyndel (fl. 1622-1638) and published by Johannes Pietersz. Beerendrecht (circa 1590-1645), the series does not bear a date. However, it must have been published around 1621, which is the date of another series of etchings which are stylistically very close and also after designs by Buytewech (Haverkamp Begemann, op. cit., nos. 161-164). Other preparatory drawings for the series are in the Morgan Library, New York, showing a girl from the Zijpe, in the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Rennes, representing Edam and the Rhineland, and in the Albertina, Vienna, showing a fisherwoman from the North Sea coast (Rotterdam, 1974-5, nos. 86, 88-90).

In accordance with the fondness of Dutch poets of the period for classicising influences, Latin inscriptions were added to the etchings. Four of the eight young women, including the girl in the present drawing, have been given the names of classical nymphs or deities: the present composition was published with the legend: 'Alcmaniana leves adamat Galatea choreas/ Flava Comas, nodoque sinu Collecta fluentes' ('Golden-haired Galatea from Alkmaar, her skirts hitched up, adores dancing').

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