BP-catalogue2023#Final - Flipbook - Page 16
On the left, men are gathering wood and tending
a vineyard in a winter landscape. On the right, in a
rich and sophisticated open architecture, two men
are playing dice, while in the background, three
masked figures seem to be laughing at an old man
sitting at a table behind whom is another one filling
a glass (probably an illustration of the tradition “ The
King drinks ” made famous a century later by Jacob
Jordaens). This scene undoubtedly represents Mardi
Gras. The same elements (the masks and the dice)
can be found, for example, in an engraving by Crispijn
van de Passe after Marten de Vos illustrating the
month of February in a series of the Twelve Months1.
The subject matter seems to suggest that this drawing
was part of a series devoted to the months, although
no other sheets that may have been part of it are
known today. A drawing by Jean Cousin le Fils
depicting Spring is now in the Louvre (Fig. 1). It is
similar in size to the present drawing, but its technique,
execution and style seem to exclude it being part of
the same series. The purpose of the present drawing
remains a mystery. Its outlines are incised and it is
reddened on the verso, and it may be a project for an
engraving or more likely for an embroidery.
The technique, the tight hatching and the
representation of the landscape can be compared to a
Virgin and Child between St. John and St. Luke in the
Louvre2, and, in the elegance of the long figures and
the type of clothing they wear, to a sheet showing two
scenes from the Story of Joseph in the Herzog Anton
Ulrich-Museum in Brunswick3. In all three drawings, as
in most of those attributed to the artist, the children,
whose heads are shown in profile, have noses that
extend directly from the forehead. The Brunswick sheet
also shows three dogs that are very similar to the one
drawn on the present sheet, while the monkey can be
compared to the one, also chained, that is represented
on a Death of Cleopatra, a painting copying a lost
composition by Jean Cousin4.
Fig. 1
Jean Cousin le Fils, Le Printemps, Paris, Musée du Louvre