A Camel

CC0 Public Domain Designation

Prints and Drawings

1646

Cornelis Saftleven
Dutch, 1607-1681

Although foreign to Europe, camels and other non-native animals were sometimes displayed as curiosities on the continent. Cornelis Saftleven recorded one such rare encounter, capturing the animal’s fur by using a combination of black, brown, and ocher chalk, in some areas (the head and haunches) wetting the media to create denser passages in contrast to the dryer, more disperse use of chalk elsewhere. The addition of ink wash added further shading to suggest the volumes of the camel’s body.

Status: Currently Off View
Department: Prints and Drawings

Artist: Cornelis Saftleven
Title: A Camel
Place: Holland (Artist's nationality:)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: 1646
Medium: Black chalk and brush and black wash, with touches of brown and ochre chalk, on ivory laid paper
Inscriptions: Inscribed recto, upper center, in black chalk: “Sin San 1646"; lower center, in black chalk: "CS"
Dimensions: 20.4 × 31.3 cm (8 1/16 × 12 3/8 in.)
Credit Line: Clarence Buckingham Collection
Reference Number: 1989.201
IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world. Learn more.: https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/74217/manifest.json

A.E. Gathorne- Hardy, Descriptive catalogue of drawings by the old masters in the possession of the Hon. A. E. Gathorne-Hardy, 77 Cadogan Square (Ballantyne Press, 1902), no. 85.
Wolfgang Schulz, Cornelis Saftleven 1607–1681: Leben und Werke (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1978), p. 150, cat. 375.
Shelley Perlove and George S. Keyes (editors), Seventeenth-Century European Drawings in Midwestern Collections (University of Notre Dame Press, 2014), pp. 115, 178, no 71, 179 (ill.).

London, P&D Colnaghi, Loan Exhibition of Drawings by Old Masters from the Collection of Mr. Geoffrey Gathorne-Hardy, Oct. 12–Nov. 5 1971, cat. 49, pl. XXX, also Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, Nov. 20–Jan. 2 1972.
Art Institute of Chicago, New Acquisitions: Old Master Drawings, Dec. 2, 1989–June 8, 1990, no cat.
Art Institute of Chicago, From Pontormo to Seurat: Drawings Recently Acquired by the Art Institute of Chicago, Sept. 10, 1991–Jan. 5, 1992, n.p., cat. 15; also New York, Frick Collection, Apr. 23–July 7, 1991.
The Art Institute of Chicago, “Rubens, Rembrandt, and Drawing in the Golden Age”, September 28, 2019 - January 5, 2020, pp. 18-19, 20-21 (ill.), 45n6, 314, 335 (ill.), cat. 1, cat. by Victoria Sancho Lobis, et. al.

John Malcolm; by descent to Alfred Gathorne-Hardy; by descent to Geoffrey Gathorne-Hardy; by descent to Robert Gathorne-Hardy; sold, Sotheby-Mak van Waay, Amsterdam, May 3, 1976, lot 6. British Rail Pension Fund; sold by Lexbourne Ltd., London, to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1989.

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Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

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Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

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IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world.

Learn more.