• Additional view of object
  • Additional view of object
Jul 18, 2014
Nov 30, 2005

Two Beggars Fighting

Two Beggars Fighting

1610–20

This object has related works. See Vielle à roue; Vielle à roue

Jacques Bellange

(French, c.1575–1616)

France, 17th century

Etching

Fortieth Anniversary Gift of The Print Club of Cleveland in honor of William Mathewson Milliken 1960.20

Catalogue raisonné: Walch 18

State: I/II

Location

not on view

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Description

Since antiquity, music was considered to inspire two different effects: it could elevate the soul to spiritual thoughts, or arouse passions both violent and sensual. In this genre scene, two transients engage in an epic struggle. The hurdy-gurdy, slung across the body of one of the vagabonds, was considered a "base" instrument whose melodies heated the senses without uplifiting the spirit. In his Syntagma Musicum of 1618, the musical theorist Michael Praetorius dubbed the hurdy-gurdy a "fiddle for peasants and loose women."

See also
Collection: 
PR - Etching
Department: 
Prints
Type of artwork: 
Print
Medium: 
Etching
Credit line: 
Fortieth Anniversary Gift of The Print Club of Cleveland in honor of William Mathewson Milliken

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