Pieter Holsteyn II was active as a glass painter, draftsman, and printmaker. He probably trained under his father, Pieter Holsteyn I (c. 1580-1662), who is known for his portrait engravings, but who also executed a large number of natural history drawings in watercolor and gouache. Mentioned along with his father in the records of the Haarlem Guild of Saint Luke as early as 1634, Pieter Holsteyn II is also recorded in Zwolle, Enkhuizen (1647), and Münster (1648). By 1662 he had returned to Haarlem where he was again listed in the town’s Guild. Holsteyn specialized in the depictions of flowers and animals, mostly birds, many of them exotic or imaginary, such as the White Dodo, now in the Teylers Museum, Haarlem.[1]
Although Holsteyn is famous as a botanical and naturalistic draughtsman, he also executed scenes illustrating the Old Testament, in particular the Book of Tobit, the Story of the Prodigal Son (seven drawings in Vienna, Albertina) and Genesis, such as is the case in the two present drawings. They probably belong to the series from which two other sheets are known, The Sodomites stricken blind (Genesis 19,11) and The Expulsion of Hagar (Genesis 21,14). [2]
These four drawings were formerly in the Van Pallandt collection. The execution with pen and black ink strongly resembles etchings but they are not related to known prints; they seem to have been conceived as works of art in their own right, rather than intended for reproduction.
[1] Teylers Museum, Haarlem, vinv. no. T76a.
[2] Both sold in London, Sotheby’s, 18 February 1991, lot 151, present whereabouts unknown.
