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Lot Essay
First attributed to Pieter Bruegel the Elder by Max Friedländer in 1954, Dr. Klaus Ertz records this painting as the prototype and only signed version of a composition devised by Pieter Brueghel the Younger in the 1620s, of which two unsigned versions are also known (both formerly with Galerie de Jonckheere, in 1989 and 1990).
While no precise proverbial source for this subject can be found, its true meaning, like so many Brueghelian proverbs, was clearly meant to be understood through the thinly veiled erotic encounter taking place between the two protagonists. Ertz suggests that Brueghel’s subject was a coded illustration of carnal desire and sexual promiscuity. During the Carnival season in northern Europe, the consumption of beef and pork greatly increased as part of the celebrations, constituting a great indulgence for the majority of the population who were not usually able to afford such a luxury. Pork sausages were one such staple culinary tradition (along with brawn and pig’s trotters); indeed, during the celebrations at Konigsberg in 1583 a procession of ninety butchers paraded an enormous sausage weighing 440 lbs. through the streets (P. Burke, Helden, Schurken und Narren.
Europäische Volkskultur in der frühen Neuzeit, Stuttgart, 1981, cited in K. Ertz, op. cit., pp. 187-188). The abundance of meat products at these times led to an increased concern over the lowering of morals since an over-consumption of meat was seen as engendering an overactive carnal appetite. These concerns were not without grounds as the Carnival season did traditionally see a rise in lewd and sexual behaviour.
When offered at Galerie Giroux in 1954, this work was sold with a version of A Drunk Pushed into a Pig-Sty, a composition based on Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s original, as its pendant, another moralising subject warning against an over indulgence in drunkenness, gluttony and lust. While there is no evidence to suggest that the two pictures were originally conceived as pendants, they were clearly well paired by virtue of their subject matter.
While no precise proverbial source for this subject can be found, its true meaning, like so many Brueghelian proverbs, was clearly meant to be understood through the thinly veiled erotic encounter taking place between the two protagonists. Ertz suggests that Brueghel’s subject was a coded illustration of carnal desire and sexual promiscuity. During the Carnival season in northern Europe, the consumption of beef and pork greatly increased as part of the celebrations, constituting a great indulgence for the majority of the population who were not usually able to afford such a luxury. Pork sausages were one such staple culinary tradition (along with brawn and pig’s trotters); indeed, during the celebrations at Konigsberg in 1583 a procession of ninety butchers paraded an enormous sausage weighing 440 lbs. through the streets (P. Burke, Helden, Schurken und Narren.
Europäische Volkskultur in der frühen Neuzeit, Stuttgart, 1981, cited in K. Ertz, op. cit., pp. 187-188). The abundance of meat products at these times led to an increased concern over the lowering of morals since an over-consumption of meat was seen as engendering an overactive carnal appetite. These concerns were not without grounds as the Carnival season did traditionally see a rise in lewd and sexual behaviour.
When offered at Galerie Giroux in 1954, this work was sold with a version of A Drunk Pushed into a Pig-Sty, a composition based on Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s original, as its pendant, another moralising subject warning against an over indulgence in drunkenness, gluttony and lust. While there is no evidence to suggest that the two pictures were originally conceived as pendants, they were clearly well paired by virtue of their subject matter.