"Do Not Eat Beans" [fol. 25 recto]

1512/1514

Drawn using pen and brown ink on cream-colored paper, a robed man to our right holds up both hands and looks away from a plant in this vertical composition. A hood covers the man’s head, and he has a long beard. His hands shield his face from the plant to our left, which is painted with watercolor to give it green leaves and stems and dark pink flowers. A handwritten name above the man reads, "Pythagoras." The plant is labeled “Fabe.” A crack splits the ground from the bottom right corner of the paper across the page.

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Artwork overview

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

(Sale, London, Sotheby's, 13 July 1937, lot 64); (sale, London, Sotheby's, 15-17 November 1937, lot 546); (sale, London, Maggs Bros., Ltd., catalogue 709, 1941, no. 30); (purchased by William H. Schab Gallery via Paul Graupe); purchased by Ian Woodner, New York, by 1973; by inheritance to his daughters, Andrea and Dian Woodner, New York, 1990.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1973

  • Woodner Collection II: Old Master Drawings from the XV to the XVIII Century, William H. Schab Gallery, New York and tour, 1973-74, no. 18.

2009

  • Renaissance to Revolution: French Drawings from the National Gallery of Art, 1500-1800. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 2009, 20-21, no. 2a (color).

Bibliography

1941

  • Maggs Brothers. French Books and Prints, Incunabula, Bibles, and Bindings. Catalogue no. 709. London, 1941: no. 30.

1942

  • Saxl, Fritz. "A Spiritual Encyclopedia of the Later Middle Ages." Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 5, 1942: 82-134.

1974

  • Butler, Joseph T. "Old Master Drawings from the Woodner Collection II." Connoisseur 186 (1974): 56-57.

1983

  • Massing, Jean Michel. "The Influence of Erasmus: Text and image in a French pre-emblematic manuscript." Manuscripts in the Fifty Years after the Invention of Printing (Colloquium Paper at the Warburg Institute) 1983: 75-82.

1987

  • Massing, Jean Michel. "The Illustrations of Lucian's Imago Vitae Aulicae." Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes. 50 (1987): 215-216.

1990

  • Massing, Jean Michel. Du texte à l'image. La Calomnie d'Apelle et son iconographie. Strasbourg, 1990: 48, 67, 81, 93, 284-285, no. 8A, pl. 8A.

1994

  • Colenbrander, H.Th. "Een serie tekeningen naar Erasmus' Adagia: Jean Perréal, de Maître aux Pieds-Bots en de Meester van de Legende van de H. Egidius." in Boeken in de late Middeleeuwen. Hermans and van der Hoek, eds. Groningen, 1994: 211-220.

1995

  • Massing, Jean Michel. Erasmian Wit and Proverbial Wisdom. An Illustrated Moral Compendium for François 1er. London, 1995:

  • The Touch of the Artist: Master Drawings from the Woodner Collections. Exh. cat. National Gallery of Art. Washington, 1995: 135, fig. 1.

Inscriptions

upper right in pen and brown ink: Pythagoras.; center left in pen and brown ink: Fabe

Watermarks

Briquet 13542 (cut off)

Wikidata ID

Q64570831

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