DAY & FABER master drawings

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DAY & FABER master drawings

    Robert van den Hoecke (1622 Antwerp - Bergues 1668)

    Landscape with troops passing under a bridge

    Description:

    inscribed illegibly at centre top
    pen and brown ink, with black ink, wash and bodycolour
    125 x 150 mm

    Provenance:

    Private collection, Germany

    Note:

    Robert van den Hoecke was a military architect, engraver and painter who specialised as a draughtsman in depictions of encampments, battle scenes and horses. The present sheet is typical of the artist’s pen and ink drawings, which relate compositionally to the two series of military etchings first recorded by Adam von Bartsch in 1805.

    In Catherine Levesque’s 1986 commentary to the Illustrated Bartsch she observes van den Hoecke’s dependence on a formulaic compositional schema for these etchings, which is equally true for van den Hoecke’s drawings in pen and ink: “frequently a roadway divides the setting into two halves which characterize the active and restful aspects of daily camp life… juxtaposition of foreground groups of standing or seated figures and background scenes of every-day military activities”.

    Although the inscription at the centre top could not be deciphered, it likely indicates the scene’s location since a comparable drawing at the Louvre, Paris, is inscribed with a location in the same position in the same hand. The Louvre drawing, inscribed Bij Namen 1648, locates the scene to the surroundings of Namur in Wallonia.

    Please contact us for a full catalogue entry.

    Landscape with troops passing under a bridge