Jacob de Wit

(Amsterdam 1695-1754)

A sketch of Aurora with putti

Footnotes

Provenance
Private Collection, UK

In this small but confident and fluid sketch Aurora is seen holding aloft the torch with which she is lighting the dawn sky. Jacob de Wit used this study, in reverse, for the central figure of the large ceiling decoration that he painted for Herengracht 475 in Amsterdam and which is still in situ today. The house is now the headquarters of the Vereniging Hendrick de Keyser, the association for the preservation of historic houses in The Netherlands. As one of the great decorative artists of early 18th century Holland, de Wit was commissioned to paint many such ceilings in patrician homes and used them as a vehicle to show off his facility for painting 'dal sotto in su', the dizzyingly foreshortened figures appearing to fly high above the viewer. His mythological, allegorical or historical subjects painted in this trompe l'oeil technique were greatly in demand by fashionable society and his works decorated many grand houses in Amsterdam.

Interestingly the RKD records a drawing by de Wit in the Rijksprentenkabinet, Amsterdam after Gianantonio Pellegrini (1675-1741) which de Wit has signed but in which he acknowledges his debt by inscribing it 'Pellegrini invt' (RP-T-1898-A-3750). It bears a striking similarity to the pose (in reverse) of Aurora in the present work, and it perhaps gives some insight into de Wit's influences, as the Venetian artist had visited Amsterdam around 1715.

Whilst the conceit of large-scale works is impressive, it is often in small sketches that one best appreciates the technical abilities of an artist, as this study demonstrates.