Provenance

Neijman

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Two men hold the mouth of a horse open to work on its teeth as a third, short boy or man looks on in front of a building to our left, where a blacksmith works in this vertical painting. All the people have peach-colored skin. A dark horse with a white stripe down its nose stands in a small, shed-like enclosure covered with a peaked roof, which is attached to the brick blacksmith’s shop. A balding man with a white beard and fringe of white hair, and wearing glasses, a tattered crimson-red shirt, and dark pants, holds a long, rod-like instrument in the horse’s gaping mouth. A hat lies on the ground near his feet. The man next to him is cleanshaven and wears a tall hat, a dark jacket with red sleeves, and dark pants and boots. He stands facing the horse with his mouth and eyes wide open. The horse’s nose is caught in long-handled, vice-like tongs, presumably to make the horse show its teeth. A noticeably shorter man or boy stands behind the pair, to our right, and looks on. He wears a tall, floppy hat, and his dark clothes are worn. His face is deep in shadow under the hat but he might have a mustache and beard. A white horse stands with its rump angled toward us behind the trio. Almost lost in shadow, a wide-shouldered man works on a hot piece of metal, glowing orange, next to a fire just inside the doorway to the building. Charcoal-gray smoke pours from a chimney on the roof. One dog lies down in front of the door and another frolics nearby. A chicken and a rooster peck at the dirt ground to our right. The horizon of the tree-lined landscape comes about a quarter of the way up the composition, and cream-colored, puffy clouds float across a blue sky above. Two people stands near a cow in the deep distance, near the trees.
Paulus Potter, A Farrier's Shop, 1648, oil on panel, Widener Collection, 1942.9.52

A Farrier's Shop

Paulus Potter · 1648 · oil on panel ·  Accession ID  1942.9.52

Drawn with brown ink and shaded with brown wash, a crowd gathers in a columned space on this horizontal sheet. Two columns divide the scene into thirds. The column on the left is straight, and the column on the right twists, as if gently rippling in an elongated spiral. A row of four more columns behind each of these front columns mimics their contours. Between the two front columns and close to us, a clean-shaven man and a bearded man look down at a man who sits with one ankle crossed over the other knee. The seated man looks up with his mouth open, the corners downturned, and his brows furrowed. The bearded man holds one hand up, palm facing out, and the clean-shaven man looks down with one hand reaching forward, palm up. Three more faces between the clean-shaven man and the twisting column look on, and one of them crosses his hands over the top of a crutch or walking stick. Three more people press close to the group on the right side of the twisting column. One nude, pudgy child holds onto one of the onlooker’s robes, and another nude child stands next to a woman along the right side of the sheet. The woman looks over her shoulder at us and appears to balance or brace a tray on her head. A bird is painted in slate blue on the tray. The child braces a stick across one shoulder, and two birds hang at the ends of strings on the back end. Five people stand, including a woman holding a baby, to the left of the straight column and a sixth person kneels and leans against a staff. More rows of straight columns line either side of the sheet.
Sir Peter Paul Rubens, The Miracle of the Lame Man Healed by Saint Peter and Saint John, c. 1606/1608, pen and brown ink with brown wash heightened in buff, on laid paper, laid down, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund and Andrew W. Mellon Fund, 1975.69.1

The Miracle of the Lame Man Healed by Saint Peter and Saint John

Sir Peter Paul Rubens · c. 1606/1608 · pen and brown ink with brown wash heightened in buff, on laid paper, laid down ·  Accession ID  1975.69.1