Early 19th Century Drawing By Anthonie Andriessen (amsterdam 1746 – 1813) A Woman And Her Daughter

Anthonie Andriessen (Amsterdam 1746 – 1813 Amsterdam)

A Woman and Daughter Walking near a Garden Pavilion

Pen and grey ink, watercolour, 120 x 95 mm; laid down ontowashed mount with cartouche ‘A. Andriessen’ and in gilt frame (some damage togilding of frame), outer dimensions 20.8 x 17.5 cm

Signed ‘A: Andriessen’ (black ink, verso)

Provenance
With Georges Mayer, Paris, circa 1900
Private collection, France

* 

Like his better-known brother Jurriaan Andriessen(1742–1819), who was also his teacher, Anthonie specialized in painted walldecorations, which were hugely popular from the middle of the 18thcentury.1 Jurriaan’s son Christiaan (1775–1846) kept a visual diary between1805 and 1808 which has become one of the most iconic documents of itstime.  Both brothers were active in theAmsterdam Teekenacademie (drawing academy); their pupils included some of thebest-known 19th-century Dutch artists, such as Wouter Johannes van Troostwijk,Hendrik Voogd and Jean Grandjean.

Anthonie is the author of a small group of figure studies,drawn in a strongly stylized manner, which appear to have been done quite latein his career, in the early years of the nineteenth century and are similar tothe drawings of his nephew, Christiaan, although whether the young artistinfluenced the older uncle, or vice versa, has not yet been established. Themajority of Anthonie’s drawings however are landscapes, sometimes executed incolour washes, sometimes in grey or brown ink. They are strongly reminiscent ofdrawings by Italianate masters of the seventeenth century, such as NicolaesBerchem. Anthonie is known to have studied the masters of the Golden Age, anddrawn copies after paintings by Jan Wijnants, Adriaen van de Velde, Dominicusvan Tol and Frans Hals are known from historic sale catalogues.

Drawings by Anthonie Andriessen are preserved in the FoggMuseum, Cambridge (Massachusetts), the Groninger Museum, Groningen, theMetropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and the Boijmans Van Beuningen Museum,Rotterdam. Our charming drawing can for instance be compared to a drawing byAndriessen in the collection of I.Q. van Regteren Altena.2 


1.      For the artist, see the biography in Saur Allgemeines Künstlerlexikon: die bildendenKünstler aller Zeiten und Völker, Munich 1992- , vol. 3, p. 674.2.      Pencil, watercolour, black ink framing lines,155 x 196 mm; Christie’s, Amsterdam, 10 December 2014, lot 47, repr.