Claes Jansz. Visscher’s etching, “Dancing peasant couple with bagpipe player”, c1610

Claes Jansz. Visscher (II) (aka Piscator; Nicolaes Jansz Visscher) (1587–1652)

“Dancing peasant couple with bagpipe player” (aka “Dansend boerenpaar bij doedelzakspeler” [Rijksmuseum title]), 1596–1630 (Rijksmuseum dates).

Etching on laid paper, trimmed close to the platemark and backed with a support sheet.

Size: (sheet) 12 x 19.4 cm; (plate) 11.7 x 19.1 cm; (image borderline) 11.5 x 18.9 cm.

Signed on plate with the artist’s monogram at left-of-centre on lower edge.

Hollstein 113 (Christiaan Schuckman [comp.] & Dieuwke de Hoop Scheffer [ed.] 1991, “Holstein’s Dutch & Flemish Etchings, Engravings and Woodcuts 1450–1700: Claes Jansz Visscher to Claes Claesz Visscher II (Nicolaes Visscher II)”, vol. 38, Roosendaal, Koninklijke Van Poll, p. 68, cat. no. 113).

The Rijksmuseum offers the following description of this print:

(Transl.) “Dancing peasant couple under the trees. A bagpipe player is sitting on a fence at the front left. In the background on the right a farm fight.”

(http://hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.190864)

See also the description of this print at The British Museum:

(https://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=3121665&partId=1&searchText=Claes+Jansz+VISSCHER+dance&page=1_

Condition: richly inked impression trimmed close to the platemark with replenished chips and holes and laid upon a conservator’s support sheet.

I am selling this Bruegelesque scene of peasant folk dancing to the sound of a bagpipe—mindful that bagpipes arguably carried sexual connotations in those heady days of country festivals—with a fight in the far distance with the “contestants” ineffectively constrained with a long fork and still more dancing further back, all of which no doubt exemplifies Visscher's 17^th century perception of how rural folk passed their time, for AU$240 (currently US$169.74/EUR150.66/GBP128.28 at the time of posting this print) 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 marvellous etching where the rounded forms of the dancers and bagpipe player are nested beautifully in the spaces between the trees, 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