Drawing By Jan Van Almeloveen (1656-1684, Saftleven's Engraver), Landscape With Figures, Signed, Dated 1680

Jan van Almeloveen (1656-1684)
Landscape with figures, August 5, 1680
pen and brown ink, grey wash
framing lines in pen and black ink

145 x 190 mm
signed lower left
Inscription on the back, pen and brown ink: “franckfürt aan den ooder / Johannes ab Almeloveen, fecit / den 5 Augusti 1680 »

Good state of conservation, some light foxing (which does not alter the clarity of the sheet)
The paper has been folded in four, certainly by the artist himself.

Framed with care, under glass
Dimensions with the frame: 26 x 31 cm
On the back of the frame, an extract from the sales catalog, corresponding to the exhibition-sale of an anonymous collection, Galerie Charles Férault in December 1925 (see last photo )

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This beautiful Dutch drawing, landscape in pen, brown ink and grey wash is an important testimony to the career of a rare artist of the Golden Age, Jan van Almeloveen, official engraver of Herman Saftleven (1609-1685 ). Almeloveen's interpretative engravings, essentially landscape etchings, are collected and published in the Hollstein catalog, vol. I.

The drawings by our artist, who died young, are relatively rare: we can currently locate 2 of them in the British Museum in London and 3 in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.

This drawing evokes, in its own way, Herman Saftleven's sense of composition as well as the graphic inventions of other masters such as Lambert Doomert (1624-1700), Caspar van Wittel (1653-1736), particularly for the distribution of the grey wash throughout the landscape and on the architectures.

Several figures punctuate here and there the movement of the gaze and invite the viewer to contemplate every detail of this drawing.
On the right, the soft white of the paper, untouched by the artist's hand, brings a quiet, remarkable light over this landscape. The clear sky reflected in the even clearer water.