Pieter de Jode The Temptation of St. Anthony Pen and brown ink and wash heightened with white, the outlines incised PROVENANCE The de Jode family ran a highly successful print publishing business which involved three members of the family; Pieter the Elder, Pieter the Younger and Gerard. Of these, it is Pieter the Elder who is the most accomplished artist, and he who provided the drawings for many of the prints, both for his brother Gerard and for other artists. In that respect it is worth noting that the present drawing has been incised, the technique used by designers to transfer the image from the paper of the drawing to the copper plate of the engraving. Clearly de Jode has been influenced by the work of Hieronymous Bosch and Pieter Brueghel the Elder, who both depicted complex scenes of religious moralisation and, in the case of Bosch, belonged to fervent Christian sects. The lengthy inscription on the back of the mount by the important nineteenth-century collector, Charles Gasc, not unreasonably attributes the drawing to Breughel himself. De Jode's connection with such an artistic genre is made more clear with the knowledge that he was brother-in-law to Jan Breughel the Elder. Although the print that derived from this drawing can no longer be found, our sheet's purpose as the modello is reasonably certain. Perhaps lacking the religious intensity of his older relatives, de Jode can be forgiven for including some humourous elements in this charming and idiosyncratic work. |
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