Jan
Saenredam (1565–1607)
“Adam
Forced to Labor” (TIB title), 1604, after Abraham Bloemaert (1564–1651)
plate 5 from the series of six engravings, “Story of Adam” illustrating Gen. 3
and 4.
Engraving
on laid paper trimmed slightly unevenly along the image borderline and backed with a support
sheet.
Size:
(sheet) 27.9 x 18.7 cm.
Inscribed
on plate within the image borderline: (lower left) “A. Bloemaert. in. / J. Saenredam
Sculp. 5”
Lettered on plate below the image borderline in two columns of two lines of Latin text: "Horrida
iam dumis tellus, et decolor aetas/ Stramineas habitare casas, et figere cervos
// Suadebat, terramque rudi tentare ligone,/ Longaque versato diffundere stamina
fuso." ([transl. Roethlisberger] The earth, now with horrible thornbushes,
and the vitiate age led people to live in straw huts, erect palisades, till the
ground with the rough hoe, and thread long yearn with a rounded spindle).
State
i (of ii) (before the address of Isaac Houwens [fl.1653])
TIB
4 (3). 17 (226) (Walter L Strauss (ed.) 1980, “The Illustrated Bartsch:
Netherlandish Artists”, vol. 4, Abaris, New York, p. 326); Bartsch III.225.17;
Hollstein 5.I; Roethlisberger 1993 76 (Marcel G Roethlisberger 1993, “Abraham
Bloemaert and his sons: Paintings and prints”, vol. 1, Ghent, Davaco, p. 123)
The
British Museum offers the following description of this print:
“Adam
and Eve working; Adam digs with a spade and Eve sits at right spinning; they
are accompanied by two children (Cain and Abel) who tend a vegetable patch;
beyond at right is a farmstead, some felled wood and a herd of goats; after
Bloemaert”
See
the six plates in the series held by the British Museum:
The
Rijksmuseum offers the following description of this print:
(transl.)
“Adam and Eve and their children Cain and Abel in the wilderness outside the
Earthly Paradise. Adam works the ground with a spade. Eva spins wool. Cain and
Abel harvest vegetables. In the background their hut.”
Roethlisberger
(1993) in his catalogue raisonné for the Bloemaert family offers the following
insights about this print:
A
still fairly idyllic vision of Eve spinning, Adam tilling, the sons busy with
the vegetables; no defensive palisades are visible. The background contains one
of Bloemaert's most extended landscapes. A digging man recurs in “March of the
Months” series and in “Moyses Libicus” of the second “Hermits” set. The tree
stump denotes work and a thematic scission (as in the “Expulsion of Hagar”,
1603). Forms with the following plate a pair of contrasting compositions, in
which the figures only occupy the lower half. The composition provoked more
imitation than any other of the series. In 1589 Cornelis van Haarlem had
treated the first family after the Fall very differently in a large painting
now at Quimper, showing huge figures in close-up view” (vol. 1, p. 123).
Condition:
an excellent, but slightly silvery, first state impression with a few minor
restorations of edge chips, trimmed close to the image borderline and laid upon
an archival support sheet of millennium quality washi paper.
Note
that this is the second copy of this print that I have listed (the earlier
listing has been sold).
I
am selling this sensitively executed lifetime impression from 1604 showcasing
Saenredam’s distinctively elegant style of rendering subtle tonal gradations
with gentle curving strokes exemplifying the Mannerist spirit of the time for
AU$408 (currently US$279.39/EUR252.21/GBP215.83 at the time of posting this
listing) including postage and handling to anywhere in the world (but not, of
course, any import duties/taxes imposed by some countries).
If
you are interested in purchasing this masterpiece of engraving, please contact
me (oz_jim@printsandprinciples.com) and I will send you a PayPal invoice to
make the payment easy.
