Cornelis Saftleven (attributed to)
Gorinchem, 1607 – Rotterdam, 1681
Sitting man drinking
Black chalk and gray ink wash on white paper.
Framing line in pen and brown ink.
140 x 172 mm – 5 1/2 x 6 3/4 in.
Watermark: three rounds overcome with the number 4.
Born in Gorinchem, Cornelis Saftleven, from a family of artists, apprentics with his father German and his brothers Abraham and Herman. He moved to Antwerp, between 1632 and 1634, then moved to Utrecht where he was renowned as a painter of genre scenes, landscapes and satirical subjects. Cornelis Saftleven’s drawings cover a wide range of subjects of biblical, mythological, allegorical, social or political inspiration going as far as gender scenes. His career as a designer is well documented. Specialist Wolfgang Schulz has cataloged more than seventy-five isolated figures, male or female[ 1 ]. Cornelis Saftleven almost all of them made with black chalk, often with additions of gray wash. Only a small part can be considered as preparatory studies for paintings. The artist was to keep these studies in his workshop, those with his monogram and a date were probably intended for sale to collectors. We propose to attribute our sheet representing a man, sitting on a stool, drinking a mug of beer to Cornelis Saftleven. The model’s pose recalls the artist’s way of inscribing his characters in an attitude of everyday life like the following works : Standing man smoking a pipe[ 2 ] and A man sitting from behind[ 3 ].
Condition report – Very good condition.
[ 1 ] See. Wolfgang Schulz, Cornelis Saftleven 1607-1681. Leben und Werke Mit einem kritischen Katalog der Gemälde und Zeichnungen, Berlin, 1978.
[ 2 ] Hamburg, Kunsthalle, Inv. 22474.
[ 3 ] Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, Inv. RP-T-1989-105.
