17th Century Old Master Drawing By Jan Porcellis (gent 1580-1632) An Old Woman Seen From Behind

Jan Porcellis (Ghent 1580 – 1632 Zoeterwoude)

An Old Woman Seen from Behind

Pen and brown ink, brown ink framing lines, 47 x 19 mm

Provenance
- Anonymous sale, Christie’s, New York, 9 June 1981, part of lot 59 (as Herman Saftleven)
- Lodewijk Houthakker (1926-2008), Amsterdam

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Jan Porcellis’s father, Captain Jan Pourchelles or Porcellis, was one of the many Flemish refugees from the renewed Spanish persecutions in 1585 who emigrated to the Northern Netherlands. The family settled at Rotterdam, where Jan Porcellis is first recorded on the occasion of his marriage in 1605. He probably started his career as a graphic artist. The artist is first mentioned as a painter in Antwerp, where he moved in 1615 following his bankruptcy in Rotterdam. Apart from pioneering ‘tonal’ painting in Haarlem in the 1630s, Porcellis inspired the leading Dutch marine painters of the mid-17th century, especially Simon de Vlieger, Jan van de Cappelle and their followers. Both Rembrandt and Van de Cappelle collected paintings and drawings by Porcellis.

The present charming postage-stamp size sheet is part of a small group of drawings which seem earlier in date than most of Porcellis's known drawings (both stylistically and in terms of costume history). They are likely to date from c. 1610-20.
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