DOI Heft:
Nr. 3-4
DOI Artikel:Slatkes, Leonard J.: Bringing Ter Brugghen and Baburen up-to-date
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.18945#0223
Given the size and date, as well as the pure profile composition, it is more than
likely that this odd picture is the companion piece to the Cologne Bagpipe
Player. The lowly status of the bagpipe player is appropriately captured by the
rustic simplicity of his apparel and a modest but lovely color scheme dominated
by silvery grays and cool earth tones, while his gesticulating opponent is
elegantly dressed in a brightly colored Burgundian-like costume. He holds a
lute, a stringed instrument of high social status. By using two pure profiles, ter
Brugghen locks his musicians together in an unusual antagonistic exchange that
excludes all contact with the viewer. Thus, although we often think of Utrecht
pendant musicians as harmoniously complementing each other in their
activities, this pair of ter Brugghen pictures reveals that this is not always the
case.
There is yet another ter Brugghen work that seems to have originally had an
antagonistic or mocking pendant, the Girl Blowing on a Firebrand.55 There has
been considerable confusion concerning almost every aspect of this painting,
partly because it has been seen publicly only once, when it was sold at auction
in Vienna in 1959, and has not reappeared since then.56 In subject matter and
physiognomic type, this picture can be linked with such earlier works as El
Greco’s 1570-1575 Boy Blowing on a Firebrand that, until 1622, was in the
Farnese collecton in Rome.57 Bialostocki, in a classic article, traced the theme
to a famous ekpbrasis by Pliny the Elder in which a lost antique painting of “a
55 Benedict Nicolson, “Second thoughts about Terbrugghen”, The Burlington Magazine, CII, 1960,
pp.460, 467, Fig. 3.
56 Sale, Vienna, Dorotheum, Dec. 3, 1959, lot 52, canvas, 85 x 77 cm, incorrectly as Honthorst.
57 See H. E. Wethey, El Greco and his school, voi. 2, Princeton 1962, pp.78-79.
9. Unknown artist, woodcut
illustration, Ovid,
Metamorphoses, Venice,
149/
213
likely that this odd picture is the companion piece to the Cologne Bagpipe
Player. The lowly status of the bagpipe player is appropriately captured by the
rustic simplicity of his apparel and a modest but lovely color scheme dominated
by silvery grays and cool earth tones, while his gesticulating opponent is
elegantly dressed in a brightly colored Burgundian-like costume. He holds a
lute, a stringed instrument of high social status. By using two pure profiles, ter
Brugghen locks his musicians together in an unusual antagonistic exchange that
excludes all contact with the viewer. Thus, although we often think of Utrecht
pendant musicians as harmoniously complementing each other in their
activities, this pair of ter Brugghen pictures reveals that this is not always the
case.
There is yet another ter Brugghen work that seems to have originally had an
antagonistic or mocking pendant, the Girl Blowing on a Firebrand.55 There has
been considerable confusion concerning almost every aspect of this painting,
partly because it has been seen publicly only once, when it was sold at auction
in Vienna in 1959, and has not reappeared since then.56 In subject matter and
physiognomic type, this picture can be linked with such earlier works as El
Greco’s 1570-1575 Boy Blowing on a Firebrand that, until 1622, was in the
Farnese collecton in Rome.57 Bialostocki, in a classic article, traced the theme
to a famous ekpbrasis by Pliny the Elder in which a lost antique painting of “a
55 Benedict Nicolson, “Second thoughts about Terbrugghen”, The Burlington Magazine, CII, 1960,
pp.460, 467, Fig. 3.
56 Sale, Vienna, Dorotheum, Dec. 3, 1959, lot 52, canvas, 85 x 77 cm, incorrectly as Honthorst.
57 See H. E. Wethey, El Greco and his school, voi. 2, Princeton 1962, pp.78-79.
9. Unknown artist, woodcut
illustration, Ovid,
Metamorphoses, Venice,
149/
213