Amsterdam - Drawings and Watercolor Paintings

Stone statue in the temple at Madura, India, 1914 Signed with initials top right Pencil on paper, 21.2 x 16.7 cm Literature: Ernst Braches en J.F. Heijbroek, W.O.J. Nieuwenkamp,B...

Four outrigger proa’s on the beach of Kusambe, Bali, 1937 Signed with initials, dated and described with location bottom left Pencil and ink on paper, 29.7 x 35 cm In ebonized frame with white mount WILLEM OTTO WIJNAND NIEUWENKAMP (1874-1950) Nieuwenkamp was born on July 27th 1874 in Amsterdam. His father owned sailing ships sailing to Indonesia and hearing the stories of the returning captains evoked in the young Nieuwenkamp an obsession for distant lands and adventure. After a failed attempt by his father to have his son make a career in his business, Nieuwenkamp attended the Academy for Decorative Art in Amsterdam. However, he left within one year to go his own way. He was an autodidact and a great experimenter with new techniques, particularly in the art of etching. Nieuwenkamp was a very focused man with the discipline of a scientist tempered by the sensitivity of an artist, a lust for adventure, a natural appreciation for ethnic arts and an enormous ambition to tread new paths. In 1898 he visited Indonesia for the first time and on his second visit in 1903-1904 he went on to Bali and became the first foreign artist to love Bali and the Balinese with a passion. Having secured agreements with several museums in the Netherlands to obtain Balinese art and objects for their collections, Nieuwenkamp immediately started to purchase and order a wide range of ethnographic art and objects from local artists and craftsmen. Through his drawings and books, he gave an excellent impression of Balinese art and culture at that time. Since 1854 Northern Bali was under Dutch...

Joseph-Marie Vien (1716-1809) ‘Ambassadeur de Siam’ and ‘La Sultana Reine’ Both titled lower centre, the drawing of the ambassador inscribed with colours intended for the prints, e...

Four Balinese, 1910 Signed and dated bottom left Pencil and ink on paper, 15.6 x 23 cm In ebonized frame with white mount. Literature: W.O.J. Nieuwenkamp, Zwerftochten op Bali, Amsterdam, 1910, p. 36 WILLEM OTTO WIJNAND NIEUWENKAMP (1874-1950) Nieuwenkamp was born on July 27th 1874 in Amsterdam. His father owned sailing ships sailing to Indonesia and hearing the stories of the returning captains evoked in the young Nieuwenkamp an obsession for distant lands and adventure. After a failed attempt by his father to have his son make a career in his business, Nieuwenkamp attended the Academy for Decorative Art in Amsterdam. However, he left within one year to go his own way. He was an autodidact and a great experimenter with new techniques, particularly in the art of etching. Nieuwenkamp was a very focused man with the discipline of a scientist tempered by the sensitivity of an artist, a lust for adventure, a natural appreciation for ethnic arts and an enormous ambition to tread new paths. In 1898 he visited Indonesia for the first time and on his second visit in 1903-1904 he went on to Bali and became the first foreign artist to love Bali and the Balinese with a passion. Having secured agreements with several museums in the Netherlands to obtain Balinese art...

House temple in Singaradja, 1904 Signed with initials upper centre and described with location and date, lower centre (vaguely in pencil 11 oct.). Pencil, ink and watercolour on pap...

Charles Frederick de Brocktorff (1775–1850) ‘Camelopard – a present from the Pacha of Egypt to the King – at Malta on its way to England’ Signed and dated C.F. de Brocktorff. / 1827. lower right, inscribed as titled in the painted margins lower centre. Pencil and watercolour heightened with gold paint and gum arabic on paper, 36.8 x 27.9 cm A gift so majestic, it made kings blush, and a gift so grand, it would startle Europe into a craze. Pasha Muhammad Ali of Egypt (1805-1848) did it in 1827: he sent to Europe three magical spotted, horned creatures, each with a neck reaching the skies and legs as long as a house is high. One giraffe to King Charles X of France, one to Francis I of Austria and the most fabled one to King George IV of England. A curious sight for Europeans, who had not seen such a beast since the Medici giraffe in 1487. Few animals created more of a stir in Europe than these royal...

FRANÇOIS MATHURIN ADALBERT, BARON DE COURCY (1805-1839) 'Le Negrito à l’ancre. Dans le port de la havanne' Indistinctly signed lower left Titled on the mount Pencil and watercolour, heightened with white, on paper, 24.8 x 34.6 cm Literature: The present watercolour will be illustrated in: - Prof. Manuel Garcia’s projected book on the disease and the slave trade provisionally titled “Fighting the Yellow Demon of Fever: The Struggle against Disease in the Illegal Slave Trade”. - Prof. Micael Zeuske’s forthcoming Global history of slave trade. Exhibited: Mexico City, 1998, Palacio Virreinal, El Barón de Courcy, illustrationes de un viaje, 1831-1833, no. 108 Note: Baron de Courcy was in the Caribbean in late 1832 and early 1833, following his tour of Mexico in 1832, on the last leg of his “Grand Voyage...

Follower of Zacharias Wagener (1614-1688) Tamanuâguasû (Giant Anteater) On Italian 17th or 18th-century paper, H. 28 x W. 43.5 cm ​The present painting is a copy after Wagener’s painting of the anteater, Tamanduá-bandeira, which is illustrated in his “Thier Buch”, with 109 drawings of Brazilian fish, birds and mammals, published in Amsterdam c. 1641, in German. ​ Zacharias Wagener, or Wagenaer in Dutch, (Dresden 1614 – Amsterdam 1668) was a real adventurer who became Opperhoofd on Deshima and Governor of the Cape of Good Hope in the service of the VOC. During the Thirty-Year War in Germany Wagener tried his luck in Amsterdam where he worked for the map-maker Willem Blaeu. In 1634 he joined the WIC and left for Dutch Brazil where he worked as writer and painter, together with Frans Post...

'A Buginese boat, Semarang 1898’ Signed, dated, and annotated, upper right Pen, brush and ink on cardboard, H. 11.4 x W. 26.3 cm Literature: Venselaar, 2019, p. 69 (ill.)

Part of the ring-wall of the Taj Mahal, Agra, India, 1914 Signed with initials and dated bottom right Black chalk on paper, 45.5 x 53 cm Literature: Ernst Braches en J.F. Heijbro...

Theo Meier (1908-1982) “A Balinese woman with offerings” Signed, dated '36 and annotated Mankok (the name of the sitter) lower left Sanguine on paper, measures: 57 x 41.5 cm In a handmade and hand painted frame with address: Max Kno¨ll, Herberggasse 4/1, Basel. Provenance: Private collection, Basel (acquired directly from the artist) Private collection, London Note: Theo Meier was born in Basel, where he attended art school and became a successful portrait painter. However, after visiting an exhibition in Basel of Tahitian paintings by Paul Gaugin, he decided to follow in Gaugin’s footsteps and go to the South Pacific. To finance his voyage, he founded a club in which every member pledged a monthly sum in return of which they could choose one of Meier’s paintings upon his return. In 1932, at the age of 24, he embarked on his voyage to the South Sea. In Tahiti, he certainly discovered the beauty of the colours of the tropical world but the simplicity of the inhabitants, he had seen in Gaugin’s paintings turned out to be more in the artist’s fantasy than in reality. He returned to Basel but in 1935 again was on his way to the South Sea. In 1936 he arrived in Bali, planning to stay there for two or three weeks, but thirty years later he was still there. In Bali “a delirium laid hold of me which even today has not subsided”, he was to write much later. The present drawing was made during his first “delirius” year in Bali. In Bali, he settled and found inspiration and friendship with other artists including Walter Spies...

Marius Bauer (1867-1932) ‘Devotie in de Woestijn’ (Devotion in the Dessert near the pyramids of Gizeh, circa 1919) Signed lower right and titled lower left Watercolour on paper, H...

Ida Bagoes Ketut Diding, Artist on bali 1937 Signed with initials, dated and titled, bottom centre Black chalk on paper, 29 x 31 cm Literature: Ernst Braches en J.F. Heijbroek, W....

Young boy at Loemboeng, 1918 Signed with initials and dated, bottom right Black chalk on paper, 25.7 x 10 cm Literature: W.O.J. Nieuwenkamp, Zwerftochten door Timor en Onderhoori...

Statue of Vishnu Garuda, Bali, 1904 Signed with initials Pencil and ink on paper, 21.4 x 21.3 cm Literature: Bruce W. Carpenter, W.O.J. Nieuwenkamp. First European Artist in Bali,...

Incoming rain, Den Pasar, Bali 1937 Signed with initials, dated and titled, bottom right Black chalk and ink on paper, 42 by 46 cm Literature: Ernst Braches en J.F. Heijbroek, W.O...

Stone statue in the temple at Madura, India, 1914 Signed with initials and dated, bottom left Pencil on paper, 25.4 x 16.7 cm Literature: Ernst Braches en J.F. Heijbroek, W.O.J. ...

Wobbly bridge, Tabanan, Bali, 1937 Signed with initials bottom right and dated, bottom left Pencil and ink on paper, 22 x 26.3 cm In ebonized frame with white mount Willem Otto Wi...

Attributed to Ukita Ikkei (1795-1859) Hanging scroll painting of the American ship commanded by Commodore Matthew Perry in Uraga Bay, annotate...

Wilhelm Heine (Dresden 30 January 1827-Löbnitz 5 October 1885) ‘Funeral of Robert Williams in the cemetery of the Temple Gyokusen-ji at Shimoda in April 1854’ With a sticker on the reverse of the frame by Coupil & Co. 1855 Watercolour on paper, H. 57 x W. 92 cm Depicted is the Bay of Shimoda with seven American ships including the two paddle-wheel warships USS Mississippi and Susquehanna. On the Gyokus- en-ji temple grounds on the right is the coffin in the middle with the remains of US marine Robert Williams, ready to be lowered into the grave. Looking on from the left are the Buddhist monks and Japanese officials who joined the first Christian funeral on Japanese soil. Around the grave are US marines, Commodore Perry...