Jacob van der Ulft was a fascinating figure in seventeenth-century Dutch draftsmanship; an amateur who never became the member of a guild, he was much involved in the municipal affairs of his native city of Gorkum. He was deeply influenced by another amateur, Jan de Bisschop, a lawyer so devoted to the ancient world that he often Latinized his name to Johannes Episcopius. This fresh and lively image of two "embracing" trees, struck with sunlight and set against a wash of golden brown "Bisschop ink," is typical of the late style of Jacob van der Ulft. The artist often made wash drawings of one or two trees, sometimes in roundels; examples are in the St. Louis Art Museum, the Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, and the British Museum, the last two signed and dated in the 1680s. The present drawing was once part of an album of 63 drawings by van der Ulft in the collection of Baron van Hardenbroek. Back to Gallery