The Blind Hurdy-Gurdy Player

Georges Marlier records that both Pieter Brueghel the Younger and David Vinckboons painted numerous versions of the present subject, which he describes as Le Jouer de Vielle et les Enfants and another related composition which he calls Pinksteren Bruiloft or La Noce Enfantine. He dedicates a chapter to these two compositions, exploring the possibility of an artistic relationship between the two artists, such as seems to have already existed between Pieter Balten and Martin van Cleve one generation earlier. Marlier appears not to have formed an opinion as to who was the originator of these compositions, but he writes that Gustav Glück thought Brueghel the author whereas Korneel Goosens favoured Vinckboons (see G. Marlier, Pierre Brueghel Le Jeune, Brussels, 1969, pp. 365-71). This panel is closest in composition to a painting by Vinckboons in the Städelsches Kunstinstitut and Städtische Galerie, Frankfurt (K. Ertz, Pieter Brueghel der Jüngere (1564-1637/38), Lingen, 2000, p. 757, fig. 601).

The German princely family of Hohenzollern, which originated in the area around the town of Hechingen in Swabia during the 11th century, is a royal dynasty of electors, kings and emperors of Prussia, Germany and Romania. Their name comes from their ancestral home, Burg Hohenzollern, near Hechingen.