Pieter Holsteyn (Dutch, 1614 - 1673) and Aert Schouman (Dutch, 1710-1792)
A Blue Headed Tern in an Estuary Landscape
Watercolor with touches of gouache, within brown ink framing lines;
Signed with the artist’s monogram in black ink, lower right: PH. fe. Bears a faint numbering in pencil, upper right: 173.
Paper size: 6 1/8 x 8 in.
Frame size: 16 x 18 ½ in.

Provenance: Probably the collection of Aert Schouman (1710-1792),
his estate sale, The Hague, B. Scheurleer, 10 December 1792, lot 910
References: C. Dumas et al, Een Koninklijk Paradijs, Aert Schouman en de verbeelding van de natuur, Dordrecht 2017, p. 156, no. 226, reproduced. Ibid., no. 227, reproduced.

This fascinating and rare sheet is one of only a small number of known watercolors by Pieter Holsteyn. It has subsequently had an elaborate landscape added by Aert Schouman, to whom, it can be assumed, the present sheet once belonged.

Other examples of Holsteyn Schouman collaborative watercolors are in the Fondation Custodia, Paris, and the North Holland Archives, Haarlem.