price: U.S. $4,500

THOMAS ADRIAANSZ. WYCK

Beverwijk 1621(?) — 1677 Haarlem

View of the Rione Terra

traces of black chalk underdrawing, brush & grey wash. 6 x 8 1/8" (152 x 208mm). inscribed on the verso in a modern hand:Tho Wyck and numbered in an old hand ...48, watermark: like Briquet 7210. framing lines also in grey ink.

provenance:
private collection, USA

There are no contemporary documents affirming Wyck's journey to Italy. But neither is he recorded in Haarlem between the date of his marriage in 1644 until 1653 when the death of a sister might well have prompted his return. Yet his painted and graphic oeuvre are often comprised of Italian views and buildings. A number of his drawn Italian scenes are on paper with an Italian watermark. Dr. Peter Schatborn surmises that Wyck must have been in Italy. Wyck painted, etched and drew many coastal views, sometimes imposing imagined buildings and figures. Such is the case in a comparable grey wash drawing in the Koninklijke Musea voor Schone Kunsten in Brussels - Coastal View with Tower1 - which is compositionally similar w it's diagonal coastline and harbors and buildings on hills off the coast to the left. Dr. Schatborn wonders if Wyck had been to Naples as the artist depicted Vesuvius in a few paintings. The present drawing confirms that the artist had indeed ventured that far south.

According to Dr. Schatborn, though Wyck's early training with the Ostade left its mark, his later technique was likely learned from his Roman compatriots, like Jacob van der Does and Houbraken.2

The Rione Terra is a town with origins in the second century BC on a cliff west of Pozzuoli. The town was the only trading center on the western Mediterranean during Roman times. It can be visited even today when excavations have revealed ancient shops along two main roads axes as well as other buildings and mazes that are 15th century and later.
1

op.cit. Schatborn, p. 123, fig. l.

2

See Peter Schatborn, Drawn to Warmth, 17th Century Dutch Artsts in Italy, Rijksmuseum, no date, pp. 117-123.