17th-c Dutch Old Master Drawing By Pieter Holsteyn II (haarlem C. 1614–1673) Study Of A Canary

Pieter Holsteyn II (Haarlem c.1614 – 1673 Amsterdam)

Study of an Island Canary

Pen and grey ink, watercolour, brown ink framing lines, 156 x 197 mm (6.1 x 7.8 inch)

Signed with monogram ‘PH [in ligature] fe.’ (pen and grey ink, lower left)

Inscribed ‘Se… Kanarij’ (pencil, verso)

Provenance
Private collection, The Netherlands

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Pieter Holsteyn was born in Haarlem around 1614 as the son of the artist Pieter Holsteyn the Elder (c.1580–1662) and Marritge Cornelisdr. Pieter the Elder was active as a designer of cartoons for tapestries, as an engraver and as a town glazier; he was the teacher of Pieter Holsteyn the Younger and his other, younger son Cornelis Holsteyn (1618–1658), who also became an artist. While Cornelis mostly painted pastoral scenes in the Italianate manner, Pieter the Younger was almost exclusively active as a draughtsman, specialising in meticulous drawing and watercolours of animals, flowers and plants.