Bulletin du Musée National de Varsovie (37.1996)

14. Here attributed to
Wolfgang Heimbach, Jhe
Adoration of the Shepherds,
Pelplin, Diocesan Museum

was likewise fulfilled in our painting, since in the background we can see
a companion of the two main figures, eating grapes. A negative undertone and
moral commentary were very often connected with representations of the five
senses, especially earlier, in the sixteenth century. But in Honthorst’s time
a more neutral understanding of the senses was already current, no longer
identifying them solely with the source and cause of corresponding sins. In that
period single depictions of the senses were also allowed, as well as the
possibility of ambiguity of interpretation.43

The painting under discussion (Fig. 12) could then be an allegory of Taste
and/or Autumn - the season of Bacchus. And oddly enough, the above mentioned
Nymph and Satyr, in the Schönborn Collection, with identical dimensions
(although with a vertical, not horizontal format), painted and dated in the
same year 1623, may be interpreted, on account of its distinctly erotic character,
as an allegory of Touch and/or Spring - the season of Venus; the nymph pulls
the satyr by the beard, while he touches her chin. A close relation between Touch
and love motifs is something quite common in iconographie tradition.

Freeman Bauer, “Moral Choice in Some Paintings by Caravaggio and His Followers”, The Art
Bulletin, LXXIII (1991), no. 3, pp.391-393.

43 Cf. L. J. Slatkes and R H. Janssen in: A. Blankert, L.J. Slatkes, et al., Holländische Malerei im neuem
Licht, op. cit., resp. cat. no. 27 and 42; Kauffmann, op. cite. Freeman Bauer, op. cit., passim-, A.
van Suchtelen, “Hendrick ter Brugghen’s ‘Bacchante with an Ape’: The Painter’s Working Method
and Theme”, The J. Paul Getty Museum Journal, 19 (1991), pp.35—42.

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