Hercules vanquishing a drakaina (half‑woman, half‑serpent)

c. 1780

Jan Goeree (Middelburg 1670 – Amsterdam 1731) Interior of the Nieuwe Kerk, Amsterdam (c. 1724) Red chalk for the architecture, pen and black ink, grey wash on paper Composition reversed in preparation for engraving 25 × 17.5 cm Watermark: Hunting horn, Churchill 318 (dated 1724) Provenance Private collection, France Context & Attribution Trained in the studio of Gérard de Lairesse, Jan Goeree was among the finest Dutch engravers of the early eighteenth century, celebrated for his architectural views of Amsterdam. This drawing is a preparatory study for an engraving of the same subject now preserved in a major public collection. The final print—slightly larger—closely follows the reversed composition of this sheet. Subject In the center of the Gothic nave, five bearers carry a catafalque toward a freshly dug grave—a tribute to the naval heroes often buried in the Nieuwe Kerk. This funerary motif, familiar from Dutch painting (e.g. Emanuel de Witte, 1657), evokes the vanitas theme and the transience of earthly life. Technical Analysis Goeree’s use of red chalk for the architecture and ink for the figures reveals his working method: the chalk lines could be used to produce a counterproof restoring the correct orientation of the architecture, while the inked figures remained adjustable before the design was transferred to the copper plate. Place within the Oeuvre Drawings of church...

Salvatore Rosa (Naples 1615 - 1673 Rome) Saint Francis of Assisi in Ecstasy Pen and brown ink, brown wash over black chalk, on paper 7 x 5 cm Bears the stamps of collections on the...

Provenance: Unidentified collector’s mark “D.G.R,” lower right (Lugt 757b) Wilhelm Suida (1877–1959), New York; by descent to: Robert L. and Bertina Suida Manning, New York, until 1996 Private Collection, USA This impressive drawing of the Assumption of the Virgin is the work of the Genoese artist Giovanni Battista Paggi. The son of a nobleman, Paggi received a humanist education and was a self-taught artist. According to Paggi’s first biographer, Raffaele Soprani, it was only after encountering Luca...

This finely executed drawing in pen and wash is typical of the work of Leonaert Bramer, one of the most fascinating yet little-known artists of 17th-century Holland. In a nocturnal ...