ENTOURAGE D' OTTO VAN VEEN, DIT OTTO VENIUS (LEYDE,... Lot n° 10

Three pilgrims walking and talking Pen and grey ink wash 29 x 40 cm Provenance Collection E.G.W., Warwickshire Click here to bid This drawing depicting the biblical scene of the Emmaus Pilgrims is attributed to the entourage of Otto Venius. Venius ran an important workshop in Antwerp from 1594 to 1598, where he had the young Peter Paul Rubens as his pupil. He received numerous commissions for works on religious, historical and mythological subjects. The two annotations in ink on the drawing attributing the work to Rubens (bottom left and middle of the drawing) clearly show the link between the work of the circle of Venius and that of Rubens. COLLONGUES COLLECTION The Collongues Collection, composed exclusively of works on paper, is dedicated to the old masters of the Dutch, Flemish, Italian, and French schools mainly. The British, German and Spanish schools are also represented. This collection, put together by a member of an ancient family from Provence whose tradition of collecting has existed for several centuries, has been created over the last 25 years. It began modestly as a thematic assemblage, and has expanded over time to include a much wider range of subjects, themes, and schools. The collector's aesthetic preferences have taken precedence over an artist's rating or reputation as a criterion for acquisition. Here, therefore, we present the personal collection of a self-taught and enlightened amateur, who acquired his works instinctively rather than logically, resulting in a vast and complete collection of old drawings from the fifteenth to the nineteenth century.