Lot 172: ABRAHAM MEERTENS MIDDELBURG 1747 - 1823

inscribed in black chalk, verso: notekraker

bears stamp, verso: MADE IN HOLLAND
watercolour with touches of white heightening, over traces of black chalk

431 by 265mm

Donald M. Bonnist, Mamaroneck;
Saam and Lily Nijstad, The Hague (Inv.nr. N476)

This originates from a group of around one hundred bird and animal drawings formerly attributed to Aert Schouman, which the Schouman expert L.J. Bol, director of the Dordrechts Museum, was invited to the United States to examine in 1972. Unable to make the journey, he asked Saam Nijstad to go in his place. Nijstad concluded that the drawings were not by Schouman but by his follower Abraham Meertens, but in the following year he nonetheless bought the whole group. At the time of their importation into the United States, it had been necessary to apply the stamp "MADE IN HOLLAND" to each drawing, in order to avoid American customs duty on the reimportation of domestically produced objects.