graphite, watercolour, graphite framing lines, watermark Pro Patria
32 x 20.7 cm

Provenance:
Hans van Leeuwen (1911-2010), Amsterdam (L. 2799a); Christie’s, Amsterdam, 12-14 December 2010, part of lot 545 (as Willem van Leen).

Willem van Leen was born in Dordrecht in 1753 and was trained as a painter in that city by Jan Arends, Dirk Kuypers and Joris Ponse. Aged 20, he left for Paris where he worked as a flower still-life painter for three years. After his Parisian sojourn, Van Leen returned to Holland and settled in Rotterdam and soon gained the status of a celebrated painter. Apart from a brief stay in Paris, Van Leen continued to work in Rotterdam (Delfshaven) and specialist in still-lifes which were sought-after internationally.

The present drawing is a particularly fine and well-preserved example of the artist’s draughtsmanship. Even though Van Leen was not a pupil of Aert Schouman, this drawing (and others by his hand showing birds) do reveal Schouman’s influence in terms of subject matter and execution. Interestingly, the birds shown in this sheet are all from Surinam which was a colony of the Netherlands until the 20th century. Van Leen will have seen these birds in one of the cabinets of a Dutch of French collector of birds. While it is unknown in which cabinet he saw these particular birds, another sheet by the artist carries an inscription ‘Braziliaansche musschen, uit het cabinet van Levaillant 1789’ and it is of course possible that the birds shown in the present drawing were part of the same cabinet. François Levaillant (1753-1828) was an avid collector of birds who visited The Netherlands in 1780 to visit Dutch collections of birds and naturalia. After his Dutch trip, he continued his travels to South Africa where he would stay for three years.