Jacob de Wit

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Jacob de Wit
(attributed to)
(Dutch, 1695-1754)

Putto in three-quarters profile to the left

Red Chalk on Paper
2.25 x 3.5 In (5.7 x 8.9 cm)

	Provenance: Stephen J Bidewell, London Museums and Collections: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, Museum Bredius, The Hague, Mauritshuis, The Hague, San Diego Museum of Art, Musée des Beaux Arts, Brussels, and many churches, public buildings and house museums in The Netherlands

	Jacob de Wit was the leading decorative painter of 18th-century Holland, specializing in Roccoco ceiling and room decorations and groups of putti painted naturalistically in colour, or as imitation reliefs en grisaille. At the age of nine, de Wit was apprenticed to Albert van Spiers (1666-1718), a painter of ceiling pictures and overmantels who had studied with Gérard de Lairesse and in Rome. From 1708 de Wit studied at the Koninklijke Academie in Antwerp and, from 1709 to 1712, with the history painter, Jacob van Hal (1672-1718). In 1713, de Wit became a member of the Antwerp Guild of St Luke. He subsequently moved to Amsterdam where he established a thriving market for ceiling paintings, including those for the Raadhuis, The Hague, in 1738. His smoothly painted grisailles - mostly of putti - imitating stucco reliefs, were called 'witjes' (a play on his name - Wit - meaning 'white'). In 1743, he painted grisaille corner-pieces to Apollo Surrounded by the Nine Muses (The Hague, Mauritshuis). Among his finest imitation reliefs is the overdoor, Joseph Gathering Corn during the Seven Years of Plenty, for the Amsterdam Stadhuis (now the Royal Palace). Our superb drawing has been housed in its current frame since Victorian times. An old label on the verso of the frame attributes the drawing to de Wit. As our sheet is wholly characteristic of de Wit's work, both in style and subject matter, there is no reason to doubt the traditional attribution. It is virtually identical to a putto in an Annunciation by de Wit from 1741 (with Christie's London, 5 July 1994, lot 119).