Unknown

Trajan Wallis (1794-1892): Study after the artist's hand

19th century

Antique Horse Study "Heads, Hooves and Rump, 1838" Wouterus Verschuur (Dutch, 1812-1874) Pencil on paper Signed and Dated "W Verschuuur 1838" 10 x 6 1/2 (17 1/2 x 14 frame) inches In his time Wouterus Verschuur was an acclaimed and celebrated painter of horses. Through careful observation he learned to capture their physique and movement to perfection. As a true-born romanticist he was also interested in their character, thereby painting powerful carthorses in their stable, thoroughbred saddled horses during an afternoon ride or harnessed horses in action. He was born to an Amsterdam jeweler and received his training from the landscape and cattle painters Pieter Gerardus van Os and Cornelis Steffelaar. As part of this education Verschuur had to copy works by the 17th century painter Philips Wouwerman. Like Wouwerman, Verschuur's subjects consist mostly of stable scenes, landscapes with horses and coastal landscape. These works reflect the enduring influence of the northern Baroque masters on nineteenth century art, revealing the artist's close study of his Dutch and Flemish predecessors harking back to Peter Paul Rubens. Showing talent from a very early age, at 15 Verschuur had a painting exhibited at the "Exhibition of Living Masters" at Amsterdam in 1828. In 1832 and 1833 he won the gold medal at the annual exhibition at Felix Meritis. In 1833 he was appointed a member of the Royal Academy in Amsterdam. In 1839 he joined the artists' society, Arti et Amicitiae. His reputation was also considerable abroad. He was often featured in the annual exhibitions which travelled the large European cities at that time. In 1855 Napoleon III purchased one of his paintings at the Exposition Universelle* in Paris. The Verschuur horse revels in its physicality, like a quintessential Baroque horse...

Fine drawing in pencil, oval format. Circle of Angelika Kauffmann. The subject is not clear. It is Amor with his arrows and perhaps Venus with a sp...