Page:Hofstede de Groot catalogue raisonné, Volume 4, 1912.djvu/606

592 PAULUS POTTER SECT. the huntsman is being roasted on a spit which two bears turn over a fire. An elephant and a monkey bring firewood, and a goat and a bear baste the culprit with fat. On the right a wolf and a fox hang a hound on a tree ; a monkey examines the pendant corpse of another hound. Under the gallows two other hounds await their fate ; a monkey guarding them points to their comrades. Farther to the right the animals dance with joy in a ring. The lion and the leopard, on a hill to the right, watch the merrymaking. The lower picture in the centre ; 9 inches by 32 inches. Single episodes in these pictures, such as, for example, the huntsman led captive, the roasting of the huntsman on a spit, and the hanging of the hounds on a tree, occur in a very similar style in an emblematical engraving of about the same date, directed against huntsmen or against unduly severe government, with the inscription : " Al te straffe Heeren Doen haar gunst in haat verkeeren " (" too severe masters turn the love of them to hatred ") ; see F. Muller, Neder- landsche Historieplaaten, Suppl. No. liiSC. The whole work is really a caricature of the hunting scenes of Reubens and P. de Vos. It is questionable whether the picture at Potter's death was un- finished except for the scene painted by Poelenberg, as Westrheene assumes. Signed in full to the right on (13) "The Huntsman condemned" ; panel, the whole measuring 33^ inches by 48 inches. Mentioned by Goethe, Kunst und Altertum, i. In the De Bye collection, Leyden ; bought from it, May 17, 1731, by Valerius de Reuver (700 florins) ; De Reuver had an offer of 2000 florins for it in 1733. In the collection of Madame de Reuver, Delft (Hoet, ii. 395), acquired as a whole in 1750 by Wilhelm VIIL, Landgraf of Hessen-Kassel. In the Palace, Kassel, 1783, No. 63 (in the first blue room). Taken to France, 1806. In the collection of the Empress Josephine, Malmaison (valued at 70,000 francs). Bought by the Emperor Alexander I. of Russia, 1815. In the Hermitage Palace, St. Petersburg, 1901 catalogue, No. 1052 ; it was there in 1834 (Sin., who valued it in 1842 at 1200). 5. TWO SPORTSMEN OUTSIDE AN INN. Sm. 25; W. 25. Outside an inn on the left two mounted sportsmen are about to start. The man in the centre, who is richly dressed, sits on a grey pony, whose girths a groom is tightening ; he is seen almost from the back. The other man, with a gun on his left arm, is mounted on a dun horse, in profile, on the right and farther back. In the extreme left fore- ground are two hounds. An old bearded man sits to the left on a bench by the open inn-door, and wipes the perspiration from his forehead with a handkerchief. Behind the inn, in the centre, is a great tree. To the right is a view of a hilly landscape. A replica with variations of 6. Signed in full, and dated 1651 ; panel, 21 inches by 30^ inches. A copy by J. Verbeek is in the Aix Museum, Provence. Engraved by W. J. Taylor. Exhibited at the British Institution, London, 1826-27 ; at Manchester, 1857, No. 870 ; and at the Royal Academy Winter Exhibition, London, 1885, No. 1 1 9.