Study of a Covered Wagon

Like his brother and probable teacher Adriaen, Isaac van Ostade specialized in scenes of rustic life. This drawing is one of five known studies by him of wagons and wheelbarrows.[1] These sheets, characterized by close observation of details of construction and texture (and, in some cases, possessing inscriptions in the artist’s hand noting specific materials), testify to Isaac’s interest in imbuing his pictures with realistic and accurately rendered motifs. In the present sheet, with his masterful handling of chalk, ink, and wash, he carefully describes the woven cane of the wagon and the heavy canvas cover. Similar conveyances, being loaded or unloaded in the midst of other activity, appear in various pictures by his hand.

[1] For this sheet and three of the other four drawings, see Bernhard Schnackenburg, Adriaen van Ostade/Isack van Ostade: Zeichnungen und Aquarelle (Hamburg: E. Hauswedell, 1981), nos. 560-563. For the fifth, see Peter Schatborn and Leonore van Sloten, Old Drawings, New Names: Rembrandt and His Contemporaries (Amsterdam: Rembrandt House Museum, 2014), no. 57.