Paintings
17th Century Original Ink Wash "Grisaille" Style Painting Attributed To Old Master Wenceslaus Hollar (1607-1677)
c. 1650 Mid 17th Century, "Grisaille" Style, Original Ink Wash Painting, Unsigned and Attributed to Old Master Artist Wenceslaus Hollar, Choice Extremely Fine.
This Old Master "Grisaille" style Ink Wash Painting is said to have been part of a small collection of Old Master drawings and watercolors recently purchased from the estate of a prominent Rhode Island collector. Accompanying the artwork was a group of reference notes and research information about that collection. In those notes, the collector attributed this watercolor to the artist Wenceslaus Hollar (1607-1677). This unsigned Ink Wash is accomplished and trimmed upon 5.75" x 8.25" fine quality handmade laid period paper. The paper is lightly tipped (pasted in the top two corners) upon a slightly larger 6.5" x 9" gray mat for display.
Bohemian artist and engraver, ink wash and watercolorist, Wenceslaus Hollar was born in Prague in 1607. He trained in the workshop of Merian in Frankfurt, and became one of the foremost engravers of topographical views in the 17th century. In 1636, while working in Cologne, he met the English connoisseur, the Earl of Artandel who took him on a tour of Europe to make views for his private collections. On account of his English connections, Hollar finally settled in London. During the Civil War there he fought on the Royalist side. It is knnown that his views of the City form an invaluable record of its original appearance before the Great Fire of 1666. Hollar was very prolific. He engraved a wide range of subjects apart from views, including illustrations of the Aesop's Fables.
This lovely piece shows a sheep herder walking down a country road, moving away from a small castle in the background, with trees, birds and a natural stream and mountain setting. A wonderful example of extreme high quality and talent by the artist to produce.
Grisaille is a term for painting executed entirely in monochrome or near-monochrome, usually in shades of grey. It is particularly used in large decorative schemes in imitation of sculpture. Many grisailles in fact include a slightly wider colour range, like the Andrea del Sarto fresco illustrated. Paintings executed in brown are sometimes referred to by the more specific term brunaille, and paintings executed in green are sometimes called verdaille.

A grisaille may be executed for its own sake, as underpainting for an oil painting (in preparation for glazing layers of colour over it), or as a model for an engraver to work from. "Rubens and his school sometimes use monochrome techniques in sketching compositions for engravers."[2] Full colouring of a subject makes many more demands of an artist, and working in grisaille was often chosen as being quicker and cheaper, although the effect was sometimes deliberately chosen for aesthetic reasons. Grisaille paintings resemble the drawings, normally in monochrome, that artists from the Renaissance on were trained to produce; like drawings they can also betray the hand of a less talented assistant more easily than a fully coloured painting.