La Marchande de Canards

Paris: Moyreau, 1762. Hand-coloured engraving on laid paper by Moyreau. Very good condition apart from some overall light soiling, minor foxing, and a bit of mild rippling. A fine composition showing a group of cavalrymen congregating oustide of a duck merchant's cottage. This beautifully coloured print is one of many engravings Jean Moyreau (1690-1762) made of Wouwerman's paintings.

Born into a family of Dutch artists in Haarlem in 1619, the prolific draughtsman and painter Philips Wouwerman was primarily renowned for his lively battle and hunting scenes. After an early elementary introduction to the art of painting by his father, Paulus Joostens, he trained with the landscape painter Jan Wynants (1620-1679) and briefly worked in the Hamburg studio of the history painter Everard Decker (d. 1647) around 1638. Wouwerman later returned to Haarlem, where he joined the Guild of St. Luke, which later elected him to the office of vinder in 1646. His elegantly rendered, distinctive works, which are characterized by their luminous colour and detailed, animated treatment of figures and landscape alike, were extremely popular in the seventeenth century as well as the nineteenth century, during which they were zealously collected. In addition to his hunting scenes, Wouwerman's varied and substantial repertoire of subjects included military and battle scenes, landscapes, travellers, animals and genre subjects.

Cf. Benezit, Dictionnaire des Peintres, Sculpteurs, Dessinateurs, et Graveurs, vol 14, p. 723.