The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of April 24, 2024

Two Beggars Fighting

Two Beggars Fighting

1610–20
(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
Location: not on view

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."
  • ?-1990
    (R.M. Light & Co., Inc., Santa Barbara, CA)
    March 16, 1990
    The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
  • Themes and Variations: Musical Drawings and Prints. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (January 25-May 17, 2015).
    Generous Donors: A Tribute to The Print Club of Cleveland. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (April 2-August 4, 1991).
    Rococo, Revolution, Restoration. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (July 11-September 24, 1989).
    Images of the Mind. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (July 7-August 30, 1987).
    French Prints and Drawings in the Age of the Bourbons, 1589-1792. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 2-May 16, 1982).
    Stefano Della Bella; Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione; Jacques Bellange; Jacques Callot. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (May 7-July 13, 1980).
    The Print Club of Cleveland, 1919 - 1969: Fifty Years in Review. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (January 14-March 31, 1970).
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  • {{cite web|title=Two Beggars Fighting|url=false|author=Jacques Bellange|year=1610–20|access-date=24 April 2024|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1960.20