Inscribed in pen and brown ink under the image. Mounted on 18th century album sheet with washed borders. 

Amstel was a versatile 18th century Dutch artist, timber merchant, art dealer, collector and teacher. He is well known for his work as a copyist, in particular of drawings from the Dutch Golden Age. The series Prentwerk of 46 colour facsimiles after drawings is among his most famous works, published between 1765 and 1787 in several parts. Many of the works that he copied were part of his own extensive private collection.

Very technically skilled, Amstel gained a reputation also as an inventor with his 'printed drawings', which used "several plates and a combination of some pure aquatint and closely etched lines, with perhaps some hand tinting", anticipating the "technical innovations of Jean-Baptiste Le Prince and Jean François Janinet" (1).

The present work is after the original 1653 black chalk drawing by Helmbreker, now in Berlin (Staatliche Museen, inv. KdZ 2795). Our drawing was perhaps a preparatory work for a reproduction print.

(1) P. Knolle, Ploos van Amstel, Cornelis, Grove Art Online, 2003, p.1.