signed, dated and inscribed ‘HD. [interlaced] Winter, del. ad viv. 1744/ OPPERDOES van medenblik af komende te zien’(recto) and with inscription ‘4h’ (verso)
pen and grey ink and grey wash
15 x 21.7 cm

Provenance:
Anonymus sale; Mak van Waay, Amsterdam, 14-16 September 1964, part of lot 536. Christiaan Pieter van Eeghen (1880-1968), Amsterdam (L. 6016), and by descent. Private collection, The Netherlands.

The talents of the 18th century draughtsman Hendrik de Winter were not limited
to drawing alone, he was a celebrated prints connoisseur, art dealer and important auctioneer too. That De Winter was a spider in the web of the 18th century art world of Amsterdam (which in itself was the centre of art trade of its time in Europe), is attested by the many important sales he organized with other illustrious auctioneers such as Jan Yver (1747-1814) and Philippus van der Schley (1739-1817).

De Winter’s artistic career was quite productive, but fairly brief; he was mainly active between 1737-1745.1 Jan van Gool states that De Winter was a pupil of Cornelis Pronk,2 a fact which is also evident from the artist’s drawings which are very close in terms of style, subject, technique and even the way they are inscribed to those by Pronk. Like his master, he drew meticulous views of castles, villages, towns and cities in North- and South-Holland, Utrecht and Germany (where he worked in 1740-1742). In contrast to many of Pronk’s drawings, however, De Winter’s topographical sheets were not engraved and published
in Isaac Tirion’s Het verheerlijkt Nederland and he must have produced them for his own pleasure or for sale.

The group of drawings that he produced during his travels in Noord Holland in 1744 – the same date as the present drawing – allow us to follow the artist on
an almost day to day basis.3 The level of finish of the present drawing, however, indicates that the sheet must have been executed after a sketch that he made during this trip, rather than directly from nature as the inscription suggests. A sketch of Medemblik, the next town north-east of Opperdoes, no doubt executed during De Winter’s trip in 1744, is in the Noord-Hollands Archief, Haarlem.4

[1] A.W. Gerlagh et al., Pronk met Pen en Penseel. Cornelis Pronk (1691-1759) tekent Noord-Holland, Amsterdam, 1997, p. 163; that De Winter did sporadically produce drawings after 1745 is evidenced by a drawing dated 1758, see Gerlagh, ibid., p. 165.
[2] J. van Gool, De Nieuwe Schouburg der Nederlantsche Kunstschilder en Schilderessen [...], The Hague, 1751, vol. 2, p. 369.
[3] ibid., p. 164. 4 Inv. 5376