Johannes Huibert PRINS
(The Hague 1756 - Utrecht 1806)
A Road by a Canal with a Church Beyond
Sold
Pen and black ink and watercolour, over an underdrawing in black chalk, with framing lines in brown ink.
Signed J. H. Prins at the lower left centre, on the lock gate. Further signed and dated J H Prins inv. fec. 1795. on the verso.
415 x 372 mm. (16 3/8 x 14 5/8 in.)
Signed J. H. Prins at the lower left centre, on the lock gate. Further signed and dated J H Prins inv. fec. 1795. on the verso.
415 x 372 mm. (16 3/8 x 14 5/8 in.)
The precise locations depicted in Prins’s drawings and watercolours of Dutch townscapes are often difficult to determine, and many may have been imaginary views.
Self-taught as an artist, Johannes Prins was expected to study to be a doctor but chose instead to devote himself to becoming an artist, despite his father’s refusal to pay for him to go to art school. He travelled to Paris early in his career and in 1785 joined the Confrerie Pictura, an association of artists in his native city of The Hague. Prins was active in Leiden, Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Utrecht, and is best known for his urban views and landscapes, in both watercolour and oil, which are often quite small in scale. He also produced a number of etchings of landscape and genre subjects, as well as several illustrations for the Verzameling van verschillende gekleede mans- en vrouwenstanden, a collection of male and female posed models for young artists to study, eventually published in 1833. Prins died in an accident in 1806, drowned in a canal in Utrecht. Drawings and watercolours by the artist are today in the collections of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, the Städel Museum in Frankfurt, the British Museum in London, the Teyler Museum in Haarlem, the Boijmans-van Beuningen Museum in Rotterdam and the Stiftung Weimarer Klassik und Kunstsammlungen in Weimar.
Provenance
Anonymous sale, Amsterdam, Christie’s, 21 November 1989, lot 178
Anonymous sale, Bern, Galerie Kornfeld, 25 June 1992, lot 85
Anonymous sale, Amsterdam, Christie’s, 15 November 1993, lot 150 (bt. Dreesmann)
Anton C.R. Dreesmann, Amsterdam (Inv. B-135)
His posthumous sale, London, Christie’s, 11 April 2002, lot 710.
Anonymous sale, Bern, Galerie Kornfeld, 25 June 1992, lot 85
Anonymous sale, Amsterdam, Christie’s, 15 November 1993, lot 150 (bt. Dreesmann)
Anton C.R. Dreesmann, Amsterdam (Inv. B-135)
His posthumous sale, London, Christie’s, 11 April 2002, lot 710.