Circle of Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn (Leiden 1606-1669 Amsterdam)

The satyr and the peasants

Details

Circle of Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn (Leiden 1606-1669 Amsterdam)
The satyr and the peasants
with inscription 'G. Eckhout', and 'N° 9' and '264' (in a modern hand) (verso)
pen and brown ink, brown wash
4½ x 5½ in. (11.6 x 13.8 cm.)

Provenance

An unidentified collector's number 'N°. 660' (verso).
Anonymous sale (Prince de S.-B.); R.W.P. de Vries, Amsterdam, 24-25 January 1922, lot 264, pl. XLIII (as Jacob Jordaens).
Lore and Rudolf Heinemann, New York; Christie's, London, 1 July 1997, lot 210 (as Gerbrand van den Eeckhout) (sold for the benefit of the Pierpont Morgan Library, New York and the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.).
with Otto Naumann, New York (as Gerbrand van den Eeckhout).

Literature

W. Sumowski, Drawings of the Rembrandt School, New York, 1980, III, no. 748x (as van den Eeckhout).

Exhibited

New York, The Pierpont Morgan Library, Drawings from the Collection of Lore and Rudolf Heinemann, 1973, no. 3.

Lot Essay

This drawing is loosely based on Jacob Jordaens' painting of the same subject now in the Staatliche Gemäldegalerie, Kassel. In the 1922 Amsterdam sale it was indeed attributed to Jordaens. The later attribution to van den Eeckhout was made by Dr. J.C. Ebbinge-Wubben, and supported by Professor Sumowski. The subject is based on Aesop's Fables, where the satyr witnesses a peasant blowing hot to warm his hands, and cold to cool his porridge; hence the expression 'blowing hot and cold'. It was interpreted as a parable of constancy, and reemerged as a popular subject for Netherlandish and Dutch artists in the 17th Century. Interestingly, Eeckhout made two paintings, and four drawings of this subject (Sumowski, op. cit., nos. 625-7; 628).

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