Pencil drawing and white gouache on dark brown paper. Trace of signature lower right. Dimensions of the drawing: 38 x 30 cm.
Jan Stobbaerts, born in Antwerp in 1838 and died in Schaerbeek in 1914, is a Belgian painter and engraver known for his paintings of animals, landscapes and portraits. Stobbaerts was a pioneer of realism and impressionism in Belgium. Orphaned at the age of six, he was placed in the care of various members of his family, very poor, and did not attend school. At the age of eight, he was apprenticed to a carpenter-cabinetmaker, and later, with another boss, he specialized in lids for tobacco tins. Then he was the assistant of a decorative painter. He then painted his own compositions which he sold in the street. In 1856, he became a pupil of Emmanuel Noterman, an animal painter. He started painting in 1855 and exhibited for the first time in Brussels in 1857. Schaerbeek named one of his arteries avenue Jan Stobbaerts.
Works at the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium.