Dujardin’s etching, “Les deux chevaux”

Karel Dujardin (aka Carel Dujardin; Carel du Jardin; Karel Du Jardin; Bokkebaart) (1626 –78)

“Les deux chevaux” (Two Horses), 1652

Size: (sheet) 15.9 x 16.2 cm

Etching on fine laid paper trimmed on the platemark with thread margins

Inscribed within the image: (upper left) "K. D. I. fe"; (lower right corner) “4”.

Bartsch 4-II (166); Hollstein VI (“Dutch and Flemish Etchings, Engravings and Woodcuts ca. 1450-1700”, vol. VI [Amsterdam, 1952]).

The British Museum does not have this rare print in its collection, but the BM has a copy of it in reverse by the famous French printmaker, Charles Meryon (1821–68) (see http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=1441972&partId=1&searchText=Dujardin+Les+deux+chevaux&page=1)

Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco has a copy of this print and offers details and description it, but the quality of their impression is comparatively poor (see https://art.famsf.org/karel-dujardin/les-deux-chevaux-19633012118). The Metropolitan Museum of Art also has a copy, but again their impression has noticeable flaws (see http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/399291).

Condition. A superb, museum quality, impression in faultless condition (i.e. there are no stains, foxing, tears, holes or folds).

I am selling this rare, high quality impression for AU$161 in total (currently US$123.33/EUR109.21/GBP93.25 at the time of posting this listing) including postage and handling to anywhere in the world.

If you are interested in purchasing this superb impression that really should be in a museum, please contact me (oz_jim@printsandprinciples.com) and I will send you a PayPal invoice to make the payment easy.

This print has been sold

About ten years ago when I purchased this print, I was deeply fascinated by images of cows and horses and the plight of the rural poor. If I were asked—which I never was—why I had an interest in such scenes, I would have stumbled for rational words, as my world was far removed from the images that I loved to contemplate. To be honest, the more flies that an artist portrayed and the more muck, piss and poop that was portrayed, the happier I was.

Interestingly, I asked my best pal—a wonderful lady with whom I have gone out painting every Saturday morning for the last fifteen years—for a “proper” answer as to why anyone, including artists, would be captivated by bucolic images and I had a reply that I wasn’t expecting: “Did you know that years ago, jockeys in Ireland who needed to lose weight would immerse themselves in manure?” Well … I didn’t. Then our live-in polymath Googled this practice and discovered that the joy of being thoroughly bedded down in poop was not limited to Irish jockeys. Isaac Ling, for instance, advises that when “… riders at Tijuana racetrack in the 1920s … saw the fermenting mountain of horse manure out the back of the racetrack that was ‘as big as a grandstand’ (the proceeds of year upon year of mucked-out stables being dumped in the one spot), they didn't just see a big pile of horse shit, but instead their own private sauna” (https://www.punters.com.au/news/Extreme-jockey-weight-loss-tactics_140371/). Fascinating stuff what some artists, jockeys and viewers love!