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Lot Essay
This painting by David Vinckboons is a poignant example of his ongoing artistic dialogue with the Bruegel dynasty. Vinckboons studied with his father, Philip, and moved with his family from their native Mechelen to Antwerp in 1579, relocating to Middelburg in 1586 following the siege of Antwerp and ultimately settling in Amsterdam in 1591. It was there that he probably came into close contact with Gillis van Coninxloo, who was to be a dominant influence on Vinckboons’s artistic production. Like Coninxloo, Vinckboons is regarded as a bridge between Flemish art of the sixteenth century and Dutch painting of the seventeenth century, linking the Flemish peasant genre paintings of Pieter Bruegel I with those of later Dutch artists like Isaac van Ostade.
At least two further versions of this composition are known. The prototype is generally thought to be Vinckboons’s signed and dated painting of 1606, which was sold in these Rooms on 6 December 2018 (£296,750). A second, unsigned example in a Brescian private collection was previously thought to be by Vinckboons, but in recent decades Klaus Ertz recognised it as the work of Pieter Brueghel II (see K. Ertz, Pieter Brueghel der Jüngere 1564-1637⁄38: Die Gemälde mit kritischem Oeuvrekatalog, Lingen, 2000, p. 761, no. 1024, fig. 586). Korneel Goossens, who was unaware of both the present work and Vinckboons’s signed and dated example published the Brescian painting as by Vinckboons. He proposed a date of circa 1608 or slightly earlier on stylistic grounds (see K. Goossens, David Vinckboons, Antwerp and The Hague, 1954, p. 106, fig. 57). Ertz proposed a similar date of circa 1607 for the painting in Brescia.
Images of the indigent strolling through villages and towns playing instruments, typically bagpipes or hurdy-gurdies, were extremely popular in the seventeenth century. Such works would almost certainly have been understood in moralising terms by their contemporary audience. Municipal governments throughout the Netherlands sought to distinguish between the deserving and undeserving poor, lending a hand to the former and shutting the door on the latter. One’s claim to aid hinged on whether they were deemed to be physically or mentally incapacitated or simply seen as lazy, drunk or a drifter (see R. Baer, ‘The Indigent’, in Class Distinctions: Dutch Painting in the Age of Rembrandt and Vermeer, exhibition catalogue, Boston, 2015, p. 234). It seems clear that in this painting Vinckboons is drawing a contrast between the bagpipe player and the begging woman with a child in her arms at right; however, he offers few clues as to which of the two – the ‘industrious’ musician or the ‘downtrodden’ mother – is worthy of financial assistance, instead leaving it to the viewer to decide.
At least two further versions of this composition are known. The prototype is generally thought to be Vinckboons’s signed and dated painting of 1606, which was sold in these Rooms on 6 December 2018 (£296,750). A second, unsigned example in a Brescian private collection was previously thought to be by Vinckboons, but in recent decades Klaus Ertz recognised it as the work of Pieter Brueghel II (see K. Ertz, Pieter Brueghel der Jüngere 1564-1637⁄38: Die Gemälde mit kritischem Oeuvrekatalog, Lingen, 2000, p. 761, no. 1024, fig. 586). Korneel Goossens, who was unaware of both the present work and Vinckboons’s signed and dated example published the Brescian painting as by Vinckboons. He proposed a date of circa 1608 or slightly earlier on stylistic grounds (see K. Goossens, David Vinckboons, Antwerp and The Hague, 1954, p. 106, fig. 57). Ertz proposed a similar date of circa 1607 for the painting in Brescia.
Images of the indigent strolling through villages and towns playing instruments, typically bagpipes or hurdy-gurdies, were extremely popular in the seventeenth century. Such works would almost certainly have been understood in moralising terms by their contemporary audience. Municipal governments throughout the Netherlands sought to distinguish between the deserving and undeserving poor, lending a hand to the former and shutting the door on the latter. One’s claim to aid hinged on whether they were deemed to be physically or mentally incapacitated or simply seen as lazy, drunk or a drifter (see R. Baer, ‘The Indigent’, in Class Distinctions: Dutch Painting in the Age of Rembrandt and Vermeer, exhibition catalogue, Boston, 2015, p. 234). It seems clear that in this painting Vinckboons is drawing a contrast between the bagpipe player and the begging woman with a child in her arms at right; however, he offers few clues as to which of the two – the ‘industrious’ musician or the ‘downtrodden’ mother – is worthy of financial assistance, instead leaving it to the viewer to decide.