Lot 562: KAREL VAN MANDER THE ELDER

KAREL VAN MANDER THE ELDER MEULEBEKE NEAR COURTRAI 1548 - 1606 AMSTERDAM 'WHEN YOUR PLATE IS EMPTY, YOU EAT BONES NOT BACON' Pen and brown ink and gray wash heightened with white (partly oxidized) over traces of black chalk, within a drawn frame; monogrammed in black chalk: K v M , and inscribed in brown ink: Een ydel buydel maecket hert t'onvreden / den tyt voorleden, moeten wy beclaghen / doen wy van het speck al te diepe sneden / t hammegen is op wij t hieltgen knaghen. 255 by 173 mm; 10 by 6 3/4 in

Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, Tekeningen van oude Meesters. De verzameling Jacobus A. Klaver, 1993, cat. no. 6

H. Miedema (ed.), Karel van Mander: The lives of the Illustrious Netherlandish and German Painters, vol. II, Doornspijk 1995, p. 135, cat. no. D48, reproduced;
M. Leesberg et al., The New Hollstein Dutch & Flemish Etchings, Engravings and Woodcuts 1450-1700, Karel van Mander, Rotterdam 1999, p. xcviii, no. 28, reproduced p. civ, fig. 28

Jacobus A. Klaver (his mark on the mount; not in Lugt),
his sale, Amsterdam, Sotheby's, 10 May 1994, lot 6, purchased by the present owner

The proverb that van Mander illustrates in this characteristically picturesque drawing, 'Wie Wat Bewaart, die heft Wat', translates loosely as 'He who keeps something, has something' and corresponds also to the proverb, referred to in the text below the image: 'When your plate is empty, you eat bones not bacon'. The young man seated at the table to the left despairingly contemplates his empty purse, the seated woman gnaws at the remains of an animal bone, and the old woman in the background tears her hair out in distress. The child, meanwhile, begs for a scrap of the frugal repast. The only calm figure is the old man in the middle of the composition, who contemplates his awful lot with hands folded, seemingly in prayer.

The drawing is the last in a series of six illustrations of proverbs which were engraved in reverse by the workshop of Goltzius (fig. 1).υ1 The first drawing of the group, depicting essentially the same subject as this, is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New Yorkυ2: the other four drawings, which illustrate proverbs such as 'Each fancies his owl to be a falcon' and 'They are strong legs that can bear luxury', are in the Albertina, Vienna.υ3 Stylistically, the present drawing is comparable with works such as the Peasant couple celebrating, in the Rijksprentenkabinet, which is dated 1588.υ4 These drawings together show how van Mander, though so recently instrumental in the introduction to Holland of Spranger's elegant Mannerism, had rapidly turned again to the works of Pieter Bruegel the Elder for his inspiration.

1. See Leesberg, op.cit, p. 111, fig. 100/1
2. Inv. no. 1980.121
3. Inv. nos. 8011-8014
4. Inv. no. 1913.3