
Signed and dated P: G: Westenberg fect 1832. verso
Black chalk, pen and grey and black ink, grey and black wash, scratching out
305 x 403 mm. (12 x 15 in.)
Westernburg was a pupil of Jan Hulswit (1766-1822) from 1808-1813, and he also attended the Amsterdam drawing academy. Hulswit soon introduced him to the drawing society Zonder Wet of Spreuk, where artists drew after clothed models. It was here that he met others artists, such as Wouter Johannes van Troostwijk and Albertus Brongeest and Gerrit Jan Michallis. Westenberg took two study trips, the first in 1816 to Gelderland and Bentheim and then one in 1817 to the Rhine and Rhur. He was intensively interested in the art of the 17th Century, and the present drawing is indeed reminiscent of the work of Aert van der Neer. Westenbrg taught a number of prominent families. In 1836 he moved to Haarlem, and in 1838 he was appointed Director of the Collection of Paintings of Living Masters in Paviljoen Welgelegen. At the age of 66 he moved to Batavia for an administrative
Writing about a Westenberg landscape in the Rijksmuseum Robert Jan Te Rijt comments:
In the period from about 1780-1840 the orientation of artists towards the Golden Age did not always extend to both content and style, but sometimes embraced only one of these aspects. For example, the landscapes and townscapes done by Amsterdam artists around 1810 to 1830 tended to follow the style of their seventeenth-century predecessors. Often the subjects which they depicted were not a direct reflection of the work of old masters, as has been the case with artists like Egbert van Drielst and Anthonj Erkelens. Characteristic of these early nineteenth century landscape drawings was the hushed atmosphere which the artists were striving to evoke1.
1.Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, 28 November 1997-3 March 1998, On Country Roads and Fields. The Depiction of the 18th and 19th Century Landscape, cat. no. 43.