Four hurdy-gurdy players and a boy with a pipe.
Be it for the purposes of drama, satire, compassion or sensitivity to social realism, beggars, the blind and the crippled have been a traditional subject in European painting since the Renaissance. The Beggars (The Cripples), an oil on panel by Dutch painter Pieter Bruegel the Elder, painted in 1568, is the artwork that starts this trend.
I found an antique painting on a wooden panel at the Portobello Road market on Friday, July 3, 2020. From a distance I thought it was an old lithograph glued to a panel, but taking a 10x loupe I could not see any dot structure, but fine and precise brushstrokes of egg tempera and watercolour on paper laid down on wood panel. It is difficult to accurately determine the technique and pigments used without cross-sectioning. When observed with the aid of a magnifying glass, some areas (the trees, for example) appear to be painted in watercolour, and others, such as the faces, in egg tempera. The combined use of both techniques is documented in 17th- and 18th-century painting, including mixing them with oil paint, as well as the use of tempera on paper (e.g. Landscape, by Lucas van Uden. XVII century. Museo del Prado). As for the pigments, there is an intense red (the lapels of the coat) that looks like vermilion, as well as other more orangish reds, greens, ochres, earths, purples, blue (in the eyes of the female figure), and when the painting is observed with a thread counter and under a bright, lateral light, gold can also be appreciated (perhaps powdered gold, not gold leaf). The use of gold is limited to the flute and the ornaments on the musical instruments. The fact that it is not also used in other areas, such as on the buttons of the coat or on the drum strings, suggests that it may be powdered gold, rather than orpiment, which was used with some frequency in the 17th century Flemish school, and which was cheaper. As for the brushstrokes, very fine-tipped brushes were used for the details of the eyebrows, beard and hair, and fine and medium brushes for the clothing folds. Also significant is the manner of depicting the trees on the left of the painting and in the reflection in the window. The style is characteristic of an antique painting. The artwork had been covered with a varnish that had turned yellowish over time. The dimensions of the panel are 18 x 11 inches (46 x 28 cm).
The painting depicts some begging or itinerant musicians, many of them one-eyed middle-aged men, playing their instruments in the street in front of a house window, while a commoner or middle class man in late 17th or 18th century French clothing and a housemaid observe the scene on either side of the painting. One of the poor buskers is blind, and some of them look like former soldiers, covered with hats and ragged capes, although because of the instruments they hold, they could be homeless people from other European countries. On the scene, at least three of the musicians play a hurdy-gurdy (vielle à roue in French), a stringed instrument that produces sound by turning by hand a wheel that rubs the strings. Among the hurdy gurdy players there is a child who blows a pipe while beating a drum. This one could be an apprentice. Beggars, homeless people and life seekers have always been part of the European urban landscape, like these musicians playing in front of a stately home.
A blind hurdy-gurdy player (1620s), by Georges de La Tour. Museo del Prado.
This is not the first hurdy-gurdy to appear in a pictorial artwork. Long before that, Hieronymus Bosch included one in the right-hand scene of the triptych Garden of Earthly Delights (1490-1500), which is also on display in the Museo del Prado.
Garden of Earthly Delights (1490-1500), by Hieronymus Bosch. Museo del Prado.
Sometimes these beggars also recited poems, and many of them had worked at jobs in their previous lives. Blind hurdy-gurdy players often appear in La Tour paintings. Other artists from the Shool of Lorraine, including Jacques Bellange and Jacques Callot, also made etchings and engravings on this topic. The shape of the hurdy-gurdy has changed over time. The shape we see in our panel looks similar to the shape of the hurdy-gurdies painted by George de la Tour, Jacques Callot and Jacques Bellange in the 17th century.
During the 17th century the hurdy-gurdy will therefore be a marginal instrument. In this period we find abundant pictorial depictions and engravings with the theme of the hurdy-gurdy beggar. One of the most influential images of the first third of the 17th century is an etching by Jacques Callot included in the series Les Gueux, which depicts a blind beggar with a hurdy-gurdy.
Les Gueux by Jacques Callot. Bibliothèque nationale de France.
This series of twenty-five etchings by Callot was published in Nancy around 1622-1623. Les Gueux portrays the human condition of those on the margins of society, mainly paupers.
In this period we also find several depictions of hurdy-gurdy beggars accompanied by a child who also plays a musical instrument: triangle, flute, drum... Le concert grotesque, by Jacques Bellange, is an engraving kept in the Bibliothèque nationale de France. Jacques Bellange was another of Lorraine's artists, born in Bassigny around 1575 and died in Nancy in 1616.
Le concert grotesque, by Jacques Bellange. Bibliothèque nationale de France.
Also 17th-century is an etching (plate 1) from a series entitled Diversi capricci by the Italian artist Stefano della Bella (1610-1664), an artwork preserved in the Met Museum. The series was published in Paris circa 1644-47 by publisher Nicolas Langlois. At the bottom is the legend "A Paris chez N. Langlois rue S. Lacques a la Victoire. Avec pri. (vilége) du Roy". The image depicts a blind beggar singing and playing the hurdy-gurdy, accompanied by a child playing the triangle. To his left, in the background, a group of peasants dance in a circle.
Diversi capricci ( ca. 1644-47), plate 1, by Stefano della Bella.
Identical in subject matter, and also dating from the 17th century, is the engraving Deux mendiants : l'un joue de la vielle, l'autre du triangle (Two beggars: one plays the hurdy-gurdy, the other the triangle), which is preserved in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France (Collection Michel Hennin. Estampes relatives à l'Histoire de France. Tome 34, Pièces 2981-3080, période : 1640-1641). The engraving was published in Paris by F. L. D. Ciartres.
Deux mendiants : l'un joue de la vielle, l'autre du triangle.
And so we come to a remarkable 17th-century etching, now in the Royal Collection. It is entitled A hurdy-gurdy player and a young boy playing a flute and beating a drum (c. 1625-1630), engraved in Paris (Pierre Mariette publisher) by Charles David (c.1595- c.1632) after Daniel Rabel's design (1587-1637). This etching was acquired by King George III in 1762. The picture is interesting because, as some of the characters in our painting, it depicts a hurdy-gurdy player and a young boy playing a flute and beating a small drum.
A hurdy-gurdy player and a young boy playing a flute and beating a drum (c.1625-1630), by C. David after Rabel.
At the bottom of the image the following legend related to the player's physical infirmity appears: "Of all the misfortunes my state is the worst, although I'm robust enough compared to other beggars. I am in a hospital as in my empire, where I live more comfortably and happily than they do. But a horrid grief gnaws at my brain. It is that I must leave life and the hurdy-gurdy" (De tous les malheeureux mon estat est le pire / Assez gaillard pourtant parmy les aultres geuex / Ie suis á l'hospital comme dans mon empire // Ou ie vis plus contant et a mon aise qu'eux / Mais vng fascheux chagrin me ronge la ceruelle / Sest qu'il me fault laisser la vie et la vielle // Mariette ex Cum Privilegio. // Rabel in C. David.f.).
Literature: Mark McDonald, The Print Collection of Cassiano dal Pozzo. I: Ceremonies, Costumes, Portraits and Genre, 3 vols, Royal Collection Trust 2017, part of The Paper Museum of Cassiano dal Pozzo: A Catalogue Raisonné, cat. no. 367.
There is another image of a hurdy-gurdy player accompanied by a child playing the flute. It is an anonymous French engraving entitled Caricature contre les Espagnols (1650), in which a Spanish 'hidalgo' is depicted riding a donkey and carrying a hurdy-gurdy under his arm. Beside him walks a child playing the flute. It is an image with Cervantine features. The second part of Cervantes' Don Quixote had been published in 1615.
Caricature contre les Espagnols (1650).
References:
Collection Michel Hennin. Estampes relatives à l'Histoire de France. Tome 40, Pièces 3574-3658, période: 1650-1652. Bibliothèque nationale de France.
The topic of the hurdy-gurdy beggar would continue to appear in some engravings and etchings during the following century, although in a very limited way. Augustin de Saint-Aubin's Le Vielleux du Pont-Neuf (c. 1766-1770) and Francois-Robert Ingouf's Travelling Musician (1885) are examples. Both are preserved in the Bibliothèque nationale de France, and show a beggar playing the hurdy-gurdy outside the window of a stately home. The second one, although dating from the 19th century, is actually a depiction of the 18th century, and is printed in Paul Lacroix's book, 18th Century Institutions, Usages And Costumes, France 1700-1789 (Paris, 1885). In both depictions we can see that the shape of the hurdy-gurdy is different from that of the previous 17th-century images. During the 16th and 17th centuries the hurdy-gurdy had adopted a bi- and tri-lobed, or trapezoidal shape, different from that of the 18th century, which was more curved, refined and elegant.
Le Vielleux du Pont-Neuf (c. 1766-1770), by Augustin de Saint-Aubin. BnF.
Travelling Musician (1885), by Francois-Robert Ingouf. BnF.
This difference in shape can also be observed if we compare two ceramic figures from the 17th and 18th centuries. The ones shown below are kept in the Petit Palais, Musée des Beaux-arts de la Ville de Paris. The one on the left was produced in the first quarter of the 17th century. The one on the right is from the third quarter of the 18th century.
There is also a notable difference in terms of who is depicted. The fact is that, in the 18th century, this musical device had become fashionable as a form of entertainment among the gentry. The Bibliothèque nationale de France holds numerous engravings and etchings depicting scenes of wealthy people playing this instrument, and a number of paintings have also survived to support this view. Joueur de vielle, by J. B. J. Pater (BnF), Le Vielleur Boniface, by Henri Bonnart (Musée Carnavalet), Portrait de Jacques Hupeau, architecte du pont Royal à Orléans, et de sa famille, by Donat Nonnotte (Musée des beaux-arts d'Orléans), The Lady with the Hurdy-Gurdy, by an unknown French artist (The Heckscher Museum of Art), Honoré Grimaldi, prince de Monaco, jouant de la vielle, by Marie-Anne Loir (Collection du palais princier de Monaco), Portrait of a lady, three-quarter-length, in a golden dress, by Jean-François de Troy, The hurdy-gurdy player, by John Hoppner (museum unknown), Portrait of a lady playing a hurdy-gurdy, attributed to Donatien Nonotte (Christie's), A woman sitting in a chair playing the hurdy-gurdy and looking towards a man on her left, by R. Gaillard after Sébastien Leclerc the younger (Wellcome Collection), or A man playing a hurdy-gurdy, attributed to Nicolas Lancret (The Barber Institute of Fine Arts), reflect this new fashion in France. Many of these hurdy-gurdies were produced by Parisian luthiers for the aristocracy. There are many more portraits of ladies playing the hurdy-gurdy, all dating from the 18th century. Marie Antoinette and philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau are known to have played the hurdy-gurdy. It was no longer associated with the poor and beggars, but was now a fashionable instrument for members of the nobility. This new trend was responding to the desire of the upper classes to enjoy the simple pleasures of an idealized peasant lifestyle, but without giving up the comforts and luxuries of their privileged social position. The rococo painter Francois-Hubert Drouais painted the sons of the Duc de Bouillon dressed as peasants or shepherds, while one of them plays the hurdy-gurdy. Marie Antoinette ordered the construction of a rustic shelter near the Palace of Versailles. The French Revolution would return the musical instrument to the popular sphere.
In all the engravings and paintings mentioned above, we can again observe the shape of the hurdy-gurdy, which is different from that of the 17th-century pictures. All these pictures were produced in France during the 18th century, except for Le Vielleur Boniface (late 17th c.), by Henri Bonnart, which reproduces the old hurdy-gurdy model.
Portrait de Jean Hupeau et sa famille (c. 1760), by Donat Nonnotte. Musée des beaux-arts d'Orléans.
Honoré Grimaldi, prince de Monaco, jouant de la vielle (1739),
by Marie-Anne Loir. Collection du palais princier de Monaco.
The Lady with the Hurdy Gurdy (c. 1750-60). Artist unknown. The Heckscher Museum of Art.
Portrait of a lady, three-quarter-length, in a golden dress, by Jean-François de Troy (1679-1752).
Portrait of a lady, attributed to Donatien Nonotte. Christie's.
A woman sitting in a chair playing the hurdy-gurdy, by R. Gaillard, after Sébastien Leclerc. Wellcome Collection.
A man playing a hurdy-gurdy, attributed to Nicolas Lancret. The Barber Institute of Fine Arts.
Le Vielleur Boniface (17th c.), by H. Bonnart. Musée Carnavalet.
Coming back to our Portobello Market painting, the style that we see in our panel was influenced by Dutch genre painting of the Golden Age. While in the rest of the countries the art market remained the privilege of the aristocracy and gentry, in the Netherlands the cities were the great centres of production due to the immense demand for paintings. Each city had its own genre painters who depicted daily life, which is a valuable historical document today. Also, because in this genre painting they portrayed all social layers, including the lowest class and their way of life.
A Hurdy-Gurdy Player Asleep in a Tavern (1690), by Willem van Mieris.
During the 17th and 18th centuries, constant periods of war, epidemics and a social structure that prevented any possibility of promotion, led to an intensification of misery in Europe. An increasingly abundant begging population tried to survive on charity in the main cities. Among that large group of disadvantaged people were those who could not access a job because of their age, illness or handicap. In many countries this condition of mendicity was regulated by law, and gave the right to beg. Since the 17th century, painting began to reflect this reality of the lower classes, and sometimes the poor and beggars became the main subjects of the paintings, offering a very close view of existence in the cities.
The Blind Hurdy-Gurdy Player (ca 1600-1610),
workshop of Pieter Brueghel the Younger (1564-1638).
Le joueur de vielle à roue(17th c.), by Pieter Nijs.
Le joueur de vielle. Workshop of Matteo dei Pitochi (17th c.).
Some of these artworks, Le joueur de vielle à roue, by Pieter Nijs (1624-1681), for example, depict the topic of the blind hurdy-gurdy player accompanied by a child. Le joueur de vielle, from the workshop of the Italian artist Matteo dei Pitochi (17th century), depicts a blind hurdy-gurdy player with a boy who, like the one in our painting, plays the pipe and drum.
Our artwork is not signed or dated, but in my research I have found that the panel is closely related to a 17th century artwork held in the Duke of Devonshire Collection at Chatsworth House, one of Britain's largest and most significant private collections of drawings. The drawing is entitled Four hurdy-gurdy players and a boy with a pipe, and is a pen and brown ink with grey wash on white paper from the School of Lorraine.
Four hurdy-gurdy players and a boy with a pipe (16.6x25 cms).
Drawing in the Devonshire Collection (Inventory no. 433).
The origin of the Devonshire's drawing would therefore be in the French school of the 17th century. In our painting, the man on the right looks like a middle-class civilian dressed in late 17th or 18th century clothing: standard black tricorn, wig, long buttoned coat, white linen shirt and cravat. By the end of the 17th century the tricorne or "cocked hat" was very popular in France, both among aristocrats and common civilians. Looking at Watteau's graphic artwork (1684-1721), his drawings show numerous male characters wearing tricorns. The fashion for the tricorn continued a century later, as can be seen in other later artists.
Left: Drawings by Watteau. Centre: A man seated in a tavern, by Thomas Rowlandson (1756-1827).
Pen, brown ink and watercolour on paper.
Neither the gentleman nor the maiden appear on the scene in the Devonshire Collection. My first doubt upon discovering that drawing was whether it might have been cropped out at some point in history. Likewise, the drawing in the Devonshire Collection also did not include the chateau or the surrounding woodland. In our panel, the facade of the estate house, probably late 16th or 17th century, is built with stone blocks, and we can see a paned window that is also missing in the drawing.
Mr. Charles Noble, Curator of Collections at the Devonshire Collection, Chatsworth, provided me with much valuable information about this drawing. It was through him that I was able to confirm that the Chatsworth drawing had indeed been cropped on all sides. The drawing had been acquired by William Cavendish (1673-1729), 2nd Duke of Devonshire, the key figure in the creation of the Chatsworth drawings collection. Thanks to Mr. Noble, I was able to access the cataloguing done by the late Professor Michael Jaffe. The drawing is catalogued in volume V (French Artists) of The Devonshire Collection of Northern European Drawings (catalogue no. 1819), published by Umberto Allemandi in 2002.
References:
The Devonshire Collection of Northern European Drawings, by Michael Jaffé. 5 vols. Torino, London, Venice: Umberto Allemandi, 2002. 820 pp, 810 color illus., 315 b&w illus. ISBN 88-422-0620-2. Review published November 2004.
https://www.chatsworth.org/art-archives/devonshire-collections/
https://hnanews.org/hnar/reviews/devonshire-collection-northern-european-drawings/
Thanks to Professor Michael Jaffe's notes, I was also able to discover other artworks related to the Devonshire Collection drawing and to the Portobello Road Market painting. According to Professor Jaffe, the subject and the treatment of the drawing is redolent of Nancy. The French curator, art historian and academician Pierre Rosenberg stated that Antoine Watteau (1684-1721) copied in sanguine this drawing at Chatsworth, or its original (?). Professor Jaffe pointed out that this sanguine drawing was on sale in Paris between 30 March and 22 April 1767, after the death of M. Jean de Jullienne (lot 784). Watteau's drawing was subsequently engraved in reverse by François Boucher (1703-1770) and published in Figures de différents caractères (...) par Antoine Watteau. Since Boucher's 18th century engraving inverts Watteau's figures, our painting could not have been inspired by it. Otherwise the drawing would have depicted the symmetrical image of Chatsworth's drawing.
Figures de différents caractères, de paysages, d'études dessinées d'après nature par Antoine Watteau (plate 347).
Bibliothèque de l'INHA (Institut national d'histoire de l'art).
Quatre Vielleux et un jeune musicien, etching by F. Boucher after A. Watteau.
Comparison and overlapping of both images, our painting and the mirror image of the engraving.
References:
Bibliothèque de l'INHA (Institut national d'histoire de l'art):
https://bibliotheque-numerique.inha.fr/viewer/18642/?offset=#page=1&viewer=picture&o=bookmark&n=0&q
Professor Jaffe also records a reference by Roux (1951, vol. VII, 363, no. 21), The comical concert, an etching by Claude Du Bosc (1684-1745), a contemporary of Watteau, also inspired by Watteau's sanguine drawing. A copy of this picture is kept at the Wellcome Collection. This etching by Du Bosc is interesting because behind the musicians is a wall of stone blocks, similar to the one in our painting, although without a window. According to the description in the artwork's catalogue, those depicted in the etching may have been members of the Quinze-Vingts, a Parisian hospice for the blind and their sighted relatives, famous for their raucous street-music, which may be incorrect, as the original image seems to have come from the French city of Nancy, until 1766 the capital of the Duchy of Lorraine.
The comical concert, 'eau-forte' by C. Du Bosc after Watteau.
Comparison and overlapping of both images.
References:
Wellcome Library no. 29501i.
https://wellcomecollection.org/works?query=%22Blind%20musicians.%22
https://wellcomecollection.org/works/gup5sd8v
R. Weigel, Die Werke der Maler in ihren Handzeichnungen, Leipzig: R. Weigel, 1865, p. 736, no. 8599.
In conclusion: While it is true that all these drawings and etchings help to clarify our painting, it is also true that so far I have not been able to associate the Portobello Road painting with a specific artist. As I mentioned earlier, even the drawing in the Devonshire Collection is anonymous. On one side, we have a 17th-century drawing of the School of Lorraine, an artwork cropped on all its sides. Were there any other figures on its sides? This question is now difficult to answer.
Then there is a drawing by Watteau, and a couple of 18th-century etchings inspired by him, one of which includes a wall of stone blocks in the background. The French art historian Pierre Rosenberg suggested a possible original artwork other than Chatsworth's drawing, which Watteau may have used for his sanguine drawing. Some clues suggest that our oil painting on paper is contemporary with the drawing at Chatsworth House, and that at some point in history it was attached to a wooden panel with two back braces, probably with the aim of being exhibited as a painting. The wooden panel is very antique, with abundant woodworm marks. Also, the hurdy-gurdies depicted in the painting are a 17th-century model. In the following century, the shape had changed, and the musical instrument was fashionable among the French aristocracy. Likewise, the subject of the composition, a blind beggar with a child playing musical instruments, belongs to the 17th-century repertoire. Also interesting is the depiction of the trees, and the limited use of gold and certain pigments, as well as the absence of others. Hence, it is not unreasonable to conclude that the origin of our painting could also lie in the School of Lorraine of the 17th century.
Comentarios
Publicar un comentario