Lot 617: ANDRIES BOTH

ANDRIES BOTH UTRECHT CIRCA 1612/13 - 1642 VENICE TWO CHARACTERS FROM POPULAR THEATRE: 'NIJKODEMUS' AND 'MUYSELAER THE PIPER' Pen and brown ink and wash; inscribed in brown ink, by each figure: Nijkodemus and Muijselaer / den pijper / Muijselaer ; pasted to an album page; bears a long inscription in Italian in the margin, attributing the drawing to Callot, and giving a biography of that artist, inscribed with a poem in English, in the same hand, on the reverse of the sheet 150 by 189 mm; 6 by 7 1/2 in

Chevalier de Damery (L. 2862);
sale, Amsterdam, Sotheby's, 15 November 1995, lot 28 (as Attributed to)

Andries Both's figure drawings normally contain at least some sort of reference to a setting for the figures depicted, but a drawing that is otherwise comparable in style was sold as Both, London, Sotheby's, 22 July 1965, lot 174. There are also parallels with the monogrammed drawing of carousing peasants formerly in the Bûtot Collection,υ1 in which the rumbustious penmanship and parallel hatching are in contrast to the slightly more delicate execution typical of the artist's smaller figure studies. The figures depicted must be characters in some popular play or festivity.

1. Sale, Amsterdam, Sotheby's, 16 November 1983, lot 89