Lot 131: JOSEPH VAN AKEN C.1699-1749

six, black and white chalk on blue laid paper, squared for transfer, four oval

Quantity: 6

largest 29 by 23 cm., 11 1/2 by 9 in.

Joseph Van Aken was born in Antwerp and came to London with his brothers in circa 1720. By the mid 1830's he was specialising in painting draperies and worked on portraits by Hudson, Ramsay and Davison amongst others. In fact, as Horace Walpole remarked, 'almost every painter's works were painted by Van Aken' (see Ellis Waterhouse, The Dictionary of British 18th Century Painters in Oils and Crayons, 1981, p.377)

A group of Van Aken's drawings of drapery which compare closely to the present works are in the National Gallery of Scotland.

We are grateful to Christopher Baker for his help in cataloguing this lot