signed with initials ‘PW:’ (recto) and with inscription ‘Cante Lijster/ Dr P Withoos fc. (verso) and ‘Cante
Lijster/ P: Withoos/ GJ 15’ (on the old mount) and B1/ 62i/ O_27’ (on the old mount)
watercolour, bodycolour and gum arabic on prepared vellum, pen and brown ink framing lines
22.1 x 26.7 cm

Provenance:
Private collection, The Netherlands.

The Withoos family from Amersfoort produced a particularly large number of talented artists.1
Among them was Pieter Withoos, who was the son of Mathias Withoos (1621/1627-1703), a successful
landscape and still-life painter from Amersfoort. Like his father, Pieter was also active as a painter,
but the vast majority of his artistic output consisted of drawings depicting flowers, birds, butterflies
and other insects. Most of these are executed on paper, but the present drawing is a rare example
on vellum. While the sheet is inscribed ‘cante lijster’ (song thrush) it does in fact depict a redwing,
which has, as the name suggests, partly red underwings and a partly red breast. While the prepared
vellum allowed Withoos to render the bird’s details with the greatest care, he did take some liberty
in depicting it: the bird’s beak, for example, points slightly downwards, while in reality redwings have
a straight beak.

With the growing interest in mapping the natural world in the 16th and 17th-centuries, natural history
drawings became increasingly popular amongst collectors. Drawings like those by Withoos were
collected by dedicated drawings collectors, but also by collectors with a broader interest in the
natural world. One of the most famous of these collectors was Agnes Block (1626-1704), who was a
horticulturalist and collected paintings, drawings and curiosities at her estate Vijverhof on the river
Vecht. She commissioned many artists of her time to produce drawings of plants for her so-called
Bloemenboek and among the artists that supplied her with drawings was Withoos. The present,
highly finished drawing was probably directly made for the market.

[1] See A. Boersma, Ander licht op Withoos. Drie generaties Withoos, Amersfoort, 2021.