The Ass at School
1557
Artist, Netherlandish, active c. 1551/1572
Publisher, Netherlandish, 1518 - 1570
Artwork overview
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Medium
engraving
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Credit Line
Gift of Mrs. Jane C. Carey as an addition to the Addie Burr Clark Memorial Collection
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Dimensions
sheet (trimmed to plate mark): 23.6 x 30.4 cm (9 5/16 x 11 15/16 in.)
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Accession
1958.6.1
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Catalogue Raisonné
New Hollstein, no. 32, State only
Artwork history & notes
Exhibition History
2001
Pieter Bruegel the Elder: Drawings and Prints, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2001, no. 40, repro.
2018
Sense of Humor: Caricature, Satire, and the Comical in Prints and Drawings from Leonardo to the Present, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 2018 - 2019.
Bibliography
1908
Bastelaer, Rene van. Les estampes de Peter Bruegel l'ancien. Brussels: G. van Oest et Cie, 1908.
1993
The New Hollstein Dutch & Flemish Etchings, Engravings and Woodcuts, 1450-1700. (Pieter Bruegel, Nadine Orenstein author). Rotterdam: Sound & Vision Interactive, 1996-, no. 32, state only.
2001
Orenstein, Nadine M., ed. Pieter Bruegel the Elder: Drawings and Prints. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY, 2001: cat. no. 41.
Inscriptions
lower left, in image, in plate: Bruegel . inventor.; lower right, in plate, in image: COCK. EX. 1557; in lower margin, in plate: PARISIOS STOLIDVM SI QVIS TRANSMITTAT ASELLVM. SI HIC EST ASINVS NON ERIT ILLIC EQVVS. / Al reÿst den esele ter scholen om leeren ist eenen esele hÿ en sal gheen peert weder keeren (If you send a stupid ass to Paris, if it is an ass here, it will not be a horse there. / Although the ass goes to school in order to learn, if it is an ass, it will not return [as] a horse) [translation from Nadine Orenstein, ed., Pieter Bruegel the Elder: Drawings and Prints. Exhibition catalogue. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2001, p. 142.]
Wikidata ID
Q65364631