Lot 41: Pieter de With (died after 1689 Amsterdam)

Pieter de With (died after 1689 Amsterdam)
Figures outside an inn, farm buildings and the pole of a dovecote, outside Amsterdam
pen and brown ink, brown and grey wash, brown ink framing lines, partial watermark device
4 3/8 x 6 1/8 in. (112 x 156 mm.)

Prince W. Argoutinsky-Dolgoroukoff (L. 2602a).
Dr. William Rheinhold Otto Valentiner; by descent to his daughter and son-in-law
Mr. and Mrs. Harry Bertoia, Pennsylvania.

De With must have been a student of Rembrandt in the early 1650s. In some instances he and Rembrandt drew the same motifs in the countyside. The farmhouse was represented by Rembrandt in three drawings from different directions (O. Benesch, The Drawings of Rembrandt, London and New York, 1973, VI, nos. 1295, 1296, 1297). Another drawing of the farmhouse in a very rembrandtesque style (O. Benesch, op. cit., no. 1294) has also recently been attributed to Pieter de With (P. Schatborn, 'Tekeningen van Rembrandt en Pieter de With', Kroniek van het Rembrandthuis, 2005, pp. 2-13, nos. 1-2).
In the present drawing, which shows the farmhouse again from a different direction, de With uses a fine pen for the trees, with varying little loops and additional hatching for the shading, to which he added brown wash with the brush, also applied to the foreground grass, the fence and the house and buildings in the distance.
The farmhouse in the drawings has been tentatively identified as along the river Amstel, which appears not clearly visible at the left in the present drawing (B. Bakker, Landscapes of Rembrandt, his favorite walks, exhib. cat., Amsterdam, Gemeentearchief, and elsewhere, 1998, pp. 290-97). The artist has probably been sitting on a dike, part of which can be seen on the left. A sign behind the farmhouse indicates that there must have been an inn, the right place to stop for making a drawing. The same farmhouse was drawn by Rembrandt from a further distance is in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (O. Benesch, op. cit., no. 1299) and there at the left a man is seated on the gate and may be working on a drawing.
We are grateful to Peter Schatborn for confirming the attribution to De With based upon a photograph and his help cataloguing this drawing.