Cornelis Ploos Van Amstel (weesp 1726 - 1798 Amsterdam) Print-engraving 18th Century

Cornelis Ploos van Amstel (Weesp 1726 – 1798 Amsterdam) after Adriaen van den Velde (Amsterdam 1636 – 1672 Amsterdam)

Landscape with a Bathing Figures

Etching and aquatint, 256 x 246 mm (10.1 x 9.7 inch); laid hinged onto crème card with framing lines in pencil and grey wash

Cornelis Ploos van Amstel’s inscription ‘Ad. vd. Velde. del. Ploos van Amstel. Fecit. 1763.’ and his coat-of-arms stamp on verso

Printed in 1763

Provenance
Private collection, The Netherlands

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This “prenttekening”, “print drawing” or “crayon manner” was executed in the sophisticated technique developed by Cornelis Ploos van Amstel, a combination of etching (for the lines) and aquatint (for the “washes” or half tones), which copies a composition by the Dutch Italianate artist Adriaen van de Velde, known from a lost painting, formerly in the Steengracht collection, and a preparatory drawing, now in the British Museum in London.1


1. See: T. Laurentius, J.W. Niemeijer and G. Ploos van Amstel, Cornelis Ploos van Amstel 1726-1798, Kunstverzamelaar en Prentuitgever, Assen, 1980, p.257, no. 4.