Wooded Landscape

Black chalk with grey and black wash heightened with white on brown paper
284 x 463 mm; 11 1/4 x 18 1/4 in

Waterloo's reputation rests mostly on his skill as a landscape draughtsman; his drawings were collected extensively throughout the 17th and 18th centuries. Wooded areas with statuesque trees reflected in lakes and streams were popular with the artist and he was not afraid to experiment in the use of technique. Here the basic composition is rendered in his preferred medium of black chalk with grey wash but in certain areas, in order to achieve the effect of sunlight shimmering through the leaves of the trees, Waterloo has roughened the surface of the paper and dragged a dry brush over it, creating an intensified contrast between the dark, where the ink has made contact with the raised surface of the paper, and the light, where the white of the paper is still visible,

The chronology of Waterloo's large output of drawings is hard to establish, few being signed. The problem is further exacerbated by the fact that few of these drawings relate to paintings. He was clearly influenced by Ruisdael's work, despite that artist's relative youth, and a few drawings have been compared directly to paintings by him, placing them in the 1670s.

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