Pieter Boel’s etching, “Donkey with Three Dogs”, c1657

Pieter Boel (aka Peeter Boel; Petro Boel, Peter Boele; Pierre Boule) (1622–1674)

“Donkey with Three Dogs” (TIB title) (aka “Donkey Loaded with Fowl”; “Ezel met gevogelte beladen”), c1657, frontispiece print from a series of six etchings featuring birds, “Diversi ucelli” (Several birds).

Etching on laid paper with small margins around the platemark and backed on a support sheet.

Size: (sheet) 17.6 x 24.7 cm; (plate) 16.2 x 23.5 cm.

Inscribed in plate on column: “Diversi uccelli/ à/ Petro Boel.”

TIB 5 (4). 1 (201) (Walter L Strauss [gen. ed.] 1979, “The Illustrated Bartsch: Netherlandish Artists”, vol. 5, New York, Abaris Books, p. 190, cat. no. 1 [201]); Hollstein Dutch 1 (F W H Hollstein 1953, “Dutch and Flemish Etchings, Engravings and Woodcuts c.1450–1700: Boekhorst–Brueghel”, vol. 3, Amsterdam, Menno Hertzberger, p.57, cat. no. 1)

The Rijksmuseum offers the following description of this print:

(transl.) “A donkey laden with fowl stands next to debris from a building. Beside him two hunting dogs” (http://hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.82669).

See also the description of this print offered by the British Museum:

“Title-page with the title of the series written on a column fragment in the lower right corner, a gun and bird at right, several animals at left ...” (https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_Sheepshanks-4411).

Condition: a well-printed impression with small margins laid onto a sheet of archival (millennium quality) washi paper. The sheet is in a good condition with no tears, holes, folds, significant stains or foxing.

I am selling this rare etching showing three dogs—you’ll have to look closely to see them all!—beside an almost overladen donkey bearing a range of hunted birds with the hunter’s flintlock rifle resting on a toppled column inscribed with the title of the series of which this is the frontispiece print, for the total cost of AU$399 (currently US$288.54/EUR245.55/GBP210.87 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 sensitively rendered hunting scene from the mid-1600s, 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