Lot 130: ANTHONIE VAN BORSSUM

AMSTERDAM 1630 - 1677 FOUR DUCKS BY A NEST Pen and brown ink and brown, grey and pink wash over traces of black chalk, within brown ink framing lines; signed, lower left: AVBorssom (AVB in monogram) 145 by 227 mm

Anthonie van Borssom's depictions of ducks, geese and other fowl resting, nesting or cavorting comprise some of his most distinctive drawings, and have few parallels in the work of his contemporaries. Perhaps the most similar to this is another signed drawing of ducks on a riverbank, also beside a nesting basket, in the Rijksmuseum Kröller-Müller, Otterlo.1 The fine drawing of Two Storks at a Reeded Shore, in the Lugt Collection, is also broadly similar in conception and handling.2 These rather finished drawings were probably in turn based on observations from life, recorded in much sketchier sheets such as those formerly in the Klaver Collection3, in a Dutch private collection4, and within a sketchbook now in the British Museum.5 1. Inv. Kl. 2, 32; W. Sumowski, Drawings of the Rembrandt School, vol. 2, New York 1979, no. 330 2. Inv. 4777; Sumowski, op. cit., no. 331 3. Sold, Amsterdam, Sotheby's, 10 May 1994, lot 94 4. Sumowski, op. cit., no. 362x 5. e.g. Sumowski, op. cit., no. 334