DOI issue:
Nr. 3-4
DOI article:Monkiewicz, Maciej: Ter Brugghen and Honthorst in Poland
DOI Page / Citation link: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.18945#0250
Bacchus or Young Man Squeezing Grapes into an Earthenware Cup (Worcester
Art Museum),36 whose arrangement, with the strong foreshortening and play
of light over a bare shoulder, seems to recall the famous Bacchino Malato of
Caravaggio (Galleria Borghese). The symbolism of grape squeezing is equally
uncomplicated and equivocal. As the visual equivalent for wine pressing, it is
closely connected with the harvest season, with bacchanals and bacchic themes,
and finally with wine itself. Honthorst’s Triumph of Siienus of c. 1623 (Palais
des Beaux-Arts, Lille), another work from the group stylistically related to our
Satyrs, portrays in the background a satyr picking grapes, who squeezes the juice
from a cluster hanging on the tree directly into his mouth.37
Depictions of the vintage were common and traditional in representations
of the seasons, and also in single pictures, as an allegory of Autumn or one of
the Autumn months - October. Thereby Bacchus himself began to play the role
of the personification of Autumn, together with Venus (Spring), Ceres
(Summer), and Aeolus (Winter), as in the series of prints by Crispijn van de
Passe 1 (1564-1637) after Maerten de Vos and Joris Hoefnagel.38 We can also
mention here The Allegory of Autumn (from a series of Seasons) in the
Princeton University Art Museum (with the motif of crushing a bunch of
grapes), and from the Utrecht circle - Vintage Holiday - Allegory of Autumn by
Jan van Bijlert, in the National Museum in Wroclaw.39 Joachim von Sandrart,
a pupil of Honthorst, included in his famous series of Twelve Months (painted
in years 1642-43 for the Bavarian Prince-Elector Maximilian) a depiction of
October with a man pressing juice from a bunch of grapes into a shell in the
hand of Bacchus or Silenus, a work perhaps partially inspired by our painting.40
But the act of wine drinking, grape squeezing, and eventually the figure of
Bacchus himself, also played the role of the allegory of Taste in representations
of the five sences; in series or single pictures they were deeply rooted in
Netherlandish art, yet were rarely undertaken by local followers of Caravaggio.
In one such painting, in the Niedersächsisches Landesmuseum in Hannover,
the above-mentioned Jan van Bijlert represented Taste in the figure of
a half-naked young man with a glass, pressing juice from the grapes into his
mouth, as one of five personifications sitting around the table.41
Of course, in conformity with the seventeenth-century tendency to make
allegory less abstract and closer to the life,42 it was desirable to show the
tasting itself, as it occurred in the Hannover painting by Bijlert. This condition
36 Probably identical with Judson, op. cit., cat. no. 75 (as: Present Whereabouts Unknown).
37 Ibidem, cat. no. 93, Fig. 33.
38 C. W. H. Hollstein, Dutch and Flemish Etching Engraving and Woodcuts, 15, The Hague 1964,
p.199, no. 560-563.
39 B. Steinborn, Katalog zbiorów malarstwa niderlandzkiego, cat. coll. Muzeum Narodowe in
Wroclaw, Wroclaw 1973, cat. no. 8, on pp.26-27 (as J. G. van Bronchorst); P H. Janssen, Jan van
Bijlert 1597/98-1671: Schilder in Utrecht, Utrecht 1994, cat. no. 72.
40 Ch. Klemm, Joachim von Sandrart: Kunstwerke und Lebenslauf, Berlin 1986, cat. no. 72, repr.
41 P.H.Janssen, op. cit., cat. no. 64, Plate 3.
42 Cf. H. Kauffmann, “Die Fünfsinne in der niederländischen Malerei des 17. Jahrhunderts”, in:
Kunstgeschichtliche Studien Dagobert Frey zum 23. April 1943..., Breslau 1943, p.133-157; L.
240
Art Museum),36 whose arrangement, with the strong foreshortening and play
of light over a bare shoulder, seems to recall the famous Bacchino Malato of
Caravaggio (Galleria Borghese). The symbolism of grape squeezing is equally
uncomplicated and equivocal. As the visual equivalent for wine pressing, it is
closely connected with the harvest season, with bacchanals and bacchic themes,
and finally with wine itself. Honthorst’s Triumph of Siienus of c. 1623 (Palais
des Beaux-Arts, Lille), another work from the group stylistically related to our
Satyrs, portrays in the background a satyr picking grapes, who squeezes the juice
from a cluster hanging on the tree directly into his mouth.37
Depictions of the vintage were common and traditional in representations
of the seasons, and also in single pictures, as an allegory of Autumn or one of
the Autumn months - October. Thereby Bacchus himself began to play the role
of the personification of Autumn, together with Venus (Spring), Ceres
(Summer), and Aeolus (Winter), as in the series of prints by Crispijn van de
Passe 1 (1564-1637) after Maerten de Vos and Joris Hoefnagel.38 We can also
mention here The Allegory of Autumn (from a series of Seasons) in the
Princeton University Art Museum (with the motif of crushing a bunch of
grapes), and from the Utrecht circle - Vintage Holiday - Allegory of Autumn by
Jan van Bijlert, in the National Museum in Wroclaw.39 Joachim von Sandrart,
a pupil of Honthorst, included in his famous series of Twelve Months (painted
in years 1642-43 for the Bavarian Prince-Elector Maximilian) a depiction of
October with a man pressing juice from a bunch of grapes into a shell in the
hand of Bacchus or Silenus, a work perhaps partially inspired by our painting.40
But the act of wine drinking, grape squeezing, and eventually the figure of
Bacchus himself, also played the role of the allegory of Taste in representations
of the five sences; in series or single pictures they were deeply rooted in
Netherlandish art, yet were rarely undertaken by local followers of Caravaggio.
In one such painting, in the Niedersächsisches Landesmuseum in Hannover,
the above-mentioned Jan van Bijlert represented Taste in the figure of
a half-naked young man with a glass, pressing juice from the grapes into his
mouth, as one of five personifications sitting around the table.41
Of course, in conformity with the seventeenth-century tendency to make
allegory less abstract and closer to the life,42 it was desirable to show the
tasting itself, as it occurred in the Hannover painting by Bijlert. This condition
36 Probably identical with Judson, op. cit., cat. no. 75 (as: Present Whereabouts Unknown).
37 Ibidem, cat. no. 93, Fig. 33.
38 C. W. H. Hollstein, Dutch and Flemish Etching Engraving and Woodcuts, 15, The Hague 1964,
p.199, no. 560-563.
39 B. Steinborn, Katalog zbiorów malarstwa niderlandzkiego, cat. coll. Muzeum Narodowe in
Wroclaw, Wroclaw 1973, cat. no. 8, on pp.26-27 (as J. G. van Bronchorst); P H. Janssen, Jan van
Bijlert 1597/98-1671: Schilder in Utrecht, Utrecht 1994, cat. no. 72.
40 Ch. Klemm, Joachim von Sandrart: Kunstwerke und Lebenslauf, Berlin 1986, cat. no. 72, repr.
41 P.H.Janssen, op. cit., cat. no. 64, Plate 3.
42 Cf. H. Kauffmann, “Die Fünfsinne in der niederländischen Malerei des 17. Jahrhunderts”, in:
Kunstgeschichtliche Studien Dagobert Frey zum 23. April 1943..., Breslau 1943, p.133-157; L.
240