THOMAS W YCK
53
Ca 1616 Beverwijk – Haarlem 1677
Oriental Merchant on the Riverbank with his Wares. Ca 1665 Etching. 12.7 x 14.0cm Bartsch 15; Weigel, and Dutuit 15/II, Hollstein 15/II-III (of IV)
Extraordinarily rare early impression whose wealth of delicate wipe marks, specif ically in the sky, place it nearly on par with the exemplar from the 2nd state in the Rijksmuseum (illustrated in Hollstein). The rather delicately etched continuous background wall is still incisive and free of weaknesses, as seen in the exemplar in the British Museum in London, which, although tightly trimmed, is also classified by J. de Scheemaker as belonging to the 2nd state, which is to say prior to the rounding of the corners of the plate. In this instance, the distinction between pointed or rounded corners seems a not especially helpful criterion for distinguishing states, both in view of the not really pointed edges of the plate of the Amsterdam impression, as well as with regard to de Scheermaker’s unquestion ing reference to the two impressions in Rotterdam, both described as “trimmed,” as belonging to the 2nd state. Furthermore, neither the 1st state, prior to the artist’s monogram, first described by Weigel, nor the 4th state postulated by de Scheemaker as later reinforced, has been documented by even a single exemplar. With margins around the delicately sketched framing line or cut down to the platemark. Pristine and fresh apart from a few pale brown f lecks. Although Houbraken mentions a trip to Italy supposedly undertaken by Wyck, a sojourn by the artist south of the Alps is by no means certain – notwithstanding the fact that the majority his print works, just 25 sheets in all, portray Mediterranean architecture or southern genre scenes in the style of van der Laers. With reference to the group of etchings that depict architecture, including the present southern harbor scene, J. de Scheemaker has confidently asserted that they must have been executed in the mid-1660s, when the artist was staying in England.
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