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Lot Essay
This intriguing, characteristically Flemish composition, painted on a well-preserved early panel, would seem to record one of the first known examples of a 'proverb painting' in post-mediaeval art. Stylistically and iconographically linked to the works of Hieronymous Bosch, the composition is known in only one other example, a larger work painted in a water-based medium, possibly tempera, on canvas (112.7 x 132.2 cm.), which has been dated to circa 1510-1530 and attributed to the Studio or Circle of Hieronymous Bosch (J. Op de Beeck, E. De Bruyn and W. Peinen, De zotte schilders: moraalridders van het penseel rond Bosch, Bruegel en Brouwer, catalogue of the exhibition held at the Centrum voor Oude Kunst, 't Vliegend Peert, Mechelen,4 April to 4 May 2003; Ghent, 2003, cat. no. 1), and which may be based on a lost prototype by the artist. First published by P. Vandenbroeck in 1989 ('Jheronimus Bosch' zogenaamde Tuin der Lusten: I', Jaarboek Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten Antwerpen, p. 154, fig. 35), it has recently received close scholarly attention with its inclusion in the major 2001 Bosch exhibition in Rotterdam (see P. Vandenbroeck, 'Jheronimus Bosch: de wijsheid van het raadsel', in J. Koldeweij, P. Vandenbroeck and B. Vermet, Jheronimus Bosch: Alle schilderijen en tekeningen, Rotterdam and Amsterdam, 2001, cat. no. 11.7, pp. 126 and 224, fig. 100) as well as in the 2003 Mechelen show. The latter exhibition opens with the picture as catalogue no. 1, where it is seen to represent the starting point of a long tradition of moralising subject matter in Flemish painting which stretches from Bosch through Bruegel, to Adriaen Brouwer and beyond; Johan Op de Beeck's catalogue entry provides a rich attributional, technical and iconographic analysis (op. cit., pp. 57-63).
The present picture may date to the same period as the larger work, which is in some ways the more simplified of the two versions, lacking the inscription 'dit is het bilken' below the hatchet on the inn sign, the lace-trimmed headdress of the innkeeper and the pearl-like detailing of her purse, and entirely omitting the lower body of the figure at the extreme right, whose belt and hat suggest that he is a learned, upper-class figure, perhaps a lawyer or a notary. Alternatively, it may belong to the period of Pieter Brueghel the Younger, who through his father was strongly influenced by Bosch's cast of hapless stock characters - fools, drunks and otherwise vicious creatures. The composition illustrates the proverb 'hy soect de byle', literally translated as 'he's looking for the hatchet' and roughly equivalent to the English 'he's looking for trouble'. A rowdy drunk, still waiving his tankard, is carried away from the appropriately named Hatchet tavern ('t Bylken was a common name for taverns in Flanders, much like the 'White Swan' name often referenced by Pieter Brueghel). Following ancient tradition, the vase with blooming hawthorn attached to the building is the sign of a drinking establishment. The female innkeeper, already attended by a doctor and a lawyer, is grimacing with anger; she seems to have received a crack on the head from her disruptive customer, and her right hand moves to draw the old-fashioned broadsword she wears as she chases the culprit out of her establishment. The bagpipes carried by the drunkard are an established attribute of sexual feeling, and perhaps he was caught trying to seduce the landlady; he has clearly 'fallen through the basket', another Dutch proverb, describing someone who has shown his true colours.
Op de Beeck notes the relationship of these types with those of Bosch's Tabletop of the Seven Deadly Sins (Madrid, Museo del Prado), for example with the scene at a window in the Sin of Envy, or the brawl between a drunkard holding a tankard and a women holding a sword in the Sin of Anger, and with physiognomies in the Temptation of Saint Anthony (Lisbon, Museo Natonal de Arte Antiga). The inverted funnel is a symbol of quackery often worn by doctors in Bosch's oeuvre, for example his The Extraction of the Stone of Folly (Madrid, Prado), the pared-down composition of which also recalls the present work. The motif of the long-suffering wife collecting her drunken husband from the tavern became a favourite of the Bruegels, and is found in numerous paintings by Pieter Brueghel the Younger, including many of the White Swan paintings (seeK. Ertz, Pieter Brueghel der Jüngere, Lingen, 2000, nos. E1179-86). Pieter Bruegel the Elder may well have known the present composition, whose own illustrations of the Dutch proverbs have become widely famous, for example the Twelve Proverbs in the Museum Mayer van den Bergh, Antwerp. We are grateful to drs. Luuk Pijl and to Dr. Matthijs Ilsink for their assistance in cataloguing this lot.
The present picture may date to the same period as the larger work, which is in some ways the more simplified of the two versions, lacking the inscription 'dit is het bilken' below the hatchet on the inn sign, the lace-trimmed headdress of the innkeeper and the pearl-like detailing of her purse, and entirely omitting the lower body of the figure at the extreme right, whose belt and hat suggest that he is a learned, upper-class figure, perhaps a lawyer or a notary. Alternatively, it may belong to the period of Pieter Brueghel the Younger, who through his father was strongly influenced by Bosch's cast of hapless stock characters - fools, drunks and otherwise vicious creatures. The composition illustrates the proverb 'hy soect de byle', literally translated as 'he's looking for the hatchet' and roughly equivalent to the English 'he's looking for trouble'. A rowdy drunk, still waiving his tankard, is carried away from the appropriately named Hatchet tavern ('t Bylken was a common name for taverns in Flanders, much like the 'White Swan' name often referenced by Pieter Brueghel). Following ancient tradition, the vase with blooming hawthorn attached to the building is the sign of a drinking establishment. The female innkeeper, already attended by a doctor and a lawyer, is grimacing with anger; she seems to have received a crack on the head from her disruptive customer, and her right hand moves to draw the old-fashioned broadsword she wears as she chases the culprit out of her establishment. The bagpipes carried by the drunkard are an established attribute of sexual feeling, and perhaps he was caught trying to seduce the landlady; he has clearly 'fallen through the basket', another Dutch proverb, describing someone who has shown his true colours.
Op de Beeck notes the relationship of these types with those of Bosch's Tabletop of the Seven Deadly Sins (Madrid, Museo del Prado), for example with the scene at a window in the Sin of Envy, or the brawl between a drunkard holding a tankard and a women holding a sword in the Sin of Anger, and with physiognomies in the Temptation of Saint Anthony (Lisbon, Museo Natonal de Arte Antiga). The inverted funnel is a symbol of quackery often worn by doctors in Bosch's oeuvre, for example his The Extraction of the Stone of Folly (Madrid, Prado), the pared-down composition of which also recalls the present work. The motif of the long-suffering wife collecting her drunken husband from the tavern became a favourite of the Bruegels, and is found in numerous paintings by Pieter Brueghel the Younger, including many of the White Swan paintings (seeK. Ertz, Pieter Brueghel der Jüngere, Lingen, 2000, nos. E1179-86). Pieter Bruegel the Elder may well have known the present composition, whose own illustrations of the Dutch proverbs have become widely famous, for example the Twelve Proverbs in the Museum Mayer van den Bergh, Antwerp. We are grateful to drs. Luuk Pijl and to Dr. Matthijs Ilsink for their assistance in cataloguing this lot.