Petrus van der Velden
Netherlands / Aotearoa New Zealand / Australia, b.1837, d.1913
Untitled (Sketch Book 1 - ‘Dutch’)
- 1870
- Pencil
- Gift of A F Nicoll family
- 438 x 432mm
- 79/459:a-ddd
Location: W A Sutton Gallery
Tags: funerals, monochrome, people (agents), sketches, studies (visual works)
Van der Velden’s sketchbooks reveal a restless, observant eye and a rapid, exploratory way of working. Family groups and scenes of everyday life fill the pages, often rendered in just a few strokes. One drawing, a vignette developed in ink and wash, shows a father holding his young daughter on his lap. In the larger sketchbook, figures relating to Burial in Winter emerge across the page: two women support a grieving widow, with working notes beside them. To their right, a more complex sketch shows mourners gathered around a woman who leans heavily on her husband’s casket.
(Timeless: Treasures from the Historical Collection 19 September 2026 – 30 May 2027)
Exhibition History
Quadrant: Four themes of Petrus van der Velden, 20 October 2006 – 25 March 2007
The Gallery has in its collection several of Van der Velden’s sketchbooks, which provide a fascinating insight into the artist’s working methods. Van der Velden filled these two sketchbooks on his visits to Marken, and later used the drawings as sources for his oil paintings. They are full of spontaneous sketches and studies, highlighting the role of the artist quietly and unobtrusively observing and recording life in the village. This is nowhere more evident than in his observations of the emotional scenes of the fisherman’s funeral.
Related
Notes
The Drawing Collection
Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū's Drawing Collection significantly expanded in the late 1970s, when a conscious effort was made to purchase works on paper from the varied disciplines of drawing. Prior to this, drawings came into the Gallery Collection via gifts or bequests, such as three illustrations by British/French artist George Du Maurier, gifted in 1934 by the Trustees of the artist.