Collection of four loosely drawn pen and ink drawings of (ruinous) castles, attributed to the Haarlem draughtsman Paulus van Liender. Three of the drawings show travellers near a ruinous gate, an inn and a moated castle. The fourth drawing is also of a moated castle, but with a rope skipping woman on a spire and a carriage on the roof, a couple seated at a table on the moat and in a tree and two boats on the road. The comic imagery of a world turned upside down, in which the expected order is inverted, was a popular subject in Dutch art since the Middle Ages. However, the common moral undertone is completely absent in this drawing, which places it purely in the comic realm.
Paulus van Liender (1731-1797) was a Dutch wood trader and later wine-tax collector, who was also a prolific draughtsman and book illustrator known for his depictions of mansions and castles.
With the three drawings of the regular world inscribed "P.v.L." or "P.v. Liender f." at the back and numbered 2, 6 or 13. With the remains of a stub on the back. The inverted world with a small hole somewhat to the lower right of the centre. For Van Liender: Van Eijnden & Van der Willigen II, pp. 220-222; RKD 49267.