Poverty is Easier to Bear Than Luxury, c. 1592

Not on View

series Title

Six Proverbs (plate 5)

Medium

engraving and letterpress on laid paper

Dimensions

plate: 24.1 x 17.1 cm (9 1/2 x 6 3/4 in.)

sheet: 39.5 x 27.3 cm (15 9/16 x 10 3/4 in.)

Credit Line

Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund

Catalogue Raisonné

New Hollstein, no. 99, State i/iii

Accession Number

2004.2.5

Artists / Makers

Hendrick Goltzius (related artist) Dutch, 1558 - 1617

Karel van Mander I (artist after) Netherlandish, 1548 - 1606

Image Use

This image is in the public domain.
Read our full Open Access policy for images .

Inscription

lower left, in image, in plate: 5; below image, in plate: Turgentem omento, pinguiq[ue] abdomine fartam, / Et spurco putore grauem, nidore petulcam / Haud leue propter opes onus aspernatur, et odit / Baiulus, vt luteo distentam sumine scropham. / Frugi Panperiem qu[a]e nullo omeratur omaso, / Nec gazis Cr[a]esi, nec Crassi dote grauatam / Tollit ouans humeris, non hanc Semeleia proles / Vino, non epulis Cerealis pressit Eleusis. (A porter refuses to carry a fat pig of a woman, bulging belly stuffed, heavy with a filthy stench, redolent with the odour of roasting, as she is a heavy burden because of her wealth and he hates her like a sow with a crammed pink pork chest. Thrifty poverty, burdened neither by a single haggis, nor Croesus' treatures, nor is heavy with Crassus' riches, he jubilantly takes upon his shoulders because Semele's child [Bacchus] has not made it heavy with wine, nor has Eleusis with Ceres' meals.); in letterpress, below plate: Die broodt-droncken weelde, swaerlyvich en vet, / Die kittelt altemet, soo haren dragher: / Dat hyse verwerpt, hem lydende veel bet, / Met armoede, want die is licht en magher. (This drunken glutton is a Load of grease, / Shee tickles me full sore, and kills mee clean, / Wherefore i'le throwe her downe and for my case, / Take up this other that is light, and lean.)

[translations by Jan Bloemendal in _The New Hollstein Dutch & Flemish Etchings, Engravings and Woodcuts, 1450-1700_. (Karel van Mander, Marjolein Leesberg, author). Rotterdam: Sound & Vision Interactive, 1999, no. 99, p. lxxvi.]

Provenance

Château de la Roche-Guyon, France (part of an album)1; (Paul Prouté S.A., Paris); purchased by NGA, 2003.

1 The album was bound in vellum, with "Abraham" on the cover and "Ligeoys" on the back cover. The Château de la Roche-Guyon stamp was on some of the pages, which included a variety of northern mannerist prints by Goltzius, Matham, Saenredam, and others. It was apparently dismantled by Prouté for sale of some of the prints to the NGA.

Associated Names

Prouté, S.A., Paul

Bibliography

1949: Hollstein, F.W.H. et al. German engravings, etchings and woodcuts ca. 1400-1700. 8 vols. Amsterdam: Menno Hertzberger, 1954-1868. Dutch and Flemish etchings, engravings and woodcuts, ca. 1450-1700. Vols. I-XV, XVIII, XIX. Amsterdam: Menno Hertzberge

1993: The New Hollstein Dutch & Flemish Etchings, Engravings and Woodcuts, 1450-1700. (Karel van Mander, Marjolein Leesberg, author). Rotterdam: Sound & Vision Interactive, 1996-, no. 99, state i/iii.