Lot 42: Jan Goeree , Middelburg 1670 - 1731 Amsterdam study for an illustration to Jacob Cats, 'eighty two years old' Pen and brown ink and two shades of brown wash, with touches of red wash, over black chalk, indented and blackened on the reverse for

Pen and brown ink and two shades of brown wash, with touches of red wash, over black chalk, indented and blackened on the reverse for transfer

measurements note 138 by 140 mm

Amsterdam, Rijksprentenkabinet, Tekeningen van oude meesters. De verzameling Jacobus A. Klaver, 1993 (catalogue by Marijn Schapelhouman and Peter Schatborn), no. 101

Sale, (E. van Aelst et al), Amsterdam, Paul Brandt, 24-28 November 1975, lot 698;
Jacobus A. Klaver, Amsterdam (bears his mark, not in Lugt, on the backing),
his sale, Amsterdam, Sotheby's, 10 May 1994, lot 103

PROPERTY FROM THE COLLECTION OF THE LATE JACOBUS A. KLAVER, AMSTERDAM
This drawing is a design for an illustration to the 1712 edition of The Complete works of Mr. Jacob Cats. The passage depicted here, from the verse autobiography 'Eighty-two years old', relates how it was not the various important offices which he held that made the author rich, but the ownership of a simple piece of polderland. The putti in the foreground hold the arms of the little town of Biervliet, the place where Cats' good fortune occurred, and the image in the background alludes to the fact that soldiers from that town played an important part in the conquest of Constantinople in 1204.
Another illustration from the same series was formerly in the Klaver Collection (lot 104 in the 1994 sale), depicting an allegory of Charity.