Woman with a Hat and a Man’s Arm with a Drinking Bowl by George Hendrik Breitner

Woman with a Hat and a Man’s Arm with a Drinking Bowl c. 1881 - 1887

amateur sketch

toned paper

light pencil work

quirky sketch

pencil sketch

sketch book

personal sketchbook

pen-ink sketch

sketchbook drawing

sketchbook art

arm

This charcoal sketch, "Woman with a Hat and a Man's Arm with a Drinking Bowl," is by Dutch artist George Hendrik Breitner and is currently housed in the Rijksmuseum. The drawing, created between 1881 and 1887, exhibits Breitner's signature style of loose, expressive lines. The sketch captures a fleeting moment in time, likely a study for a larger work, showcasing Breitner's fascination with the everyday life of the people of Amsterdam. The fragmented composition and focus on the hand holding a drinking bowl emphasize the artist’s keen eye for detail and his interest in capturing the essence of human gesture.

Comments

rijksmuseum over 1 year ago

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Breitner may have drawn this sketch during the Japanese evening at Pulchri Studio, the artists’ association in The Hague. As can be read on the poster elsewhere in this gallery, the programme included a Japanese tea ceremony. Here we see a detail of an arm (in a wide, turned-up sleeve) and a hand holding a tea bowl. Drawn – upside down – at the bottom of the sheet is a city girl: there is nothing Japanese about that.