WILLEM VAN DE VELDE I (LEIDEN CIRCA 1611-1693 LONDON)
Lot 81 Property from the Holdings of the Ford Foundation

WILLEM VAN DE VELDE I (LEIDEN CIRCA 1611-1693 LONDON)

The prow of the Danish ship Sophia Amalia

Closed24 January 2017

Price Realised

USD 16,250

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WILLEM VAN DE VELDE I (LEIDEN CIRCA 1611-1693 LONDON)
The prow of the Danish ship Sophia Amalia
black chalk counterproof, extensively reworked with brush and grey ink
11 ½ x 51 1/8 in. (21.2 x 38.5 cm.)

Anonymous sale; Sotheby's, London, 19 October 1960, lot 10.
with Bernard Houthakker, Amsterdam (cat. 1961, no. 59), where acquired by the Ford Foundation in August 1966.

Specialist note

The drawing of this Danish ship, built in 1650 and condemned in 1687, has been dated to 1667. The drawing is an extensively reworked counterproof, apparently the correct way round, of a lost original black chalk drawing. Another reworked counterproof
showing the entire ship is at the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam (inv. MB 1866/T 360; The Willem van de Velde Drawings in the Boymans-van Beuningen Museum, Rotterdam, Rotterdam, 1979, I, p. 130, III, pls. 320, 321); another view of the same ship in reverse, probably a counterproof of a counterproof of the original, is in the same collection (inv. MB 1866/T 330; ibid., I, p. 130, III, pl. 322). A counterproof of the rear of the ship is at the Victorian and Albert Museum, London (inv. 4685; J. Shoaf Turner, Dutch and Flemish drawings in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 2014, no. 272).