De Misleyden / Les Abusée.

£280.00

Abraham Delfos after Cornelis Troost De Misleyden / Les Abusée. Amsterdam, Adrien Hupkes c. 1770 Copper engraving 565x395mm Trimmed within platemark

SKU: 3760 Category:
Description

An amusing scene outside the Goat Inn (t’Bokki). A group of fashionably dressed young men at an upper window, grin naughtily as one of their number bares his bottom through the open window, on which has been painted a face. On either side of them black footmen blow trumpets out of their windows to alert passersby to the spectacle. A well dressed man on horseback looks up with a smile on his face, while his horse averts its eyes, a startled family of stout Dutch burghers look up with shocked expressions, a puritan couple seated on the bench seem unaware of what is going on, a small boy in a tree laughs, as does a street woman selling vegetables and a fashionable matron leaning on the back of a chair. The artist Cornelis Troost (1697-1750), is often called the Dutch Hogarth. They were exact contemporaries, both made formal portraits as well as conversation pieces, both won fame for their series of genre pictures, which are commentaries on the life of their times, and for pictures of contemporary theatrical performances, although Troost never aimed to moralize or improve society through his art as did Hogarth.