Musterblatt mit "Bettlern und Krüppeln"

Ohne Andeutung räumlicher Tiefe sind 31 Bettler und Bettelmusikanten über das Blatt verteilt. Nur ein Lautenspieler mit Narrenkappe scheint unversehrt – alle anderen Figuren sind verstummelt, gelahmt oder blind. Ihre Darstellung war jedoch keineswegs Mahnung zu christlicher Nächstenliebe, sondern Spottbild und Satire. In diesem Sinn wurde die Zeichnung um 1560 in Antwerpen als Erfindung Boschs in einem Antwerpener Kupferstich reproduziert. Dessen Bildunterschrift nimmt Bezug auf unmäßige Menschen, die um ihres Vorteiles willen den aufrechten Gang meiden.

Sämtliche Figuren des Albertina-Blattes wurden zuerst mit einer stark verdünnten Tinte gezeichnet, dann mit dunklerer Tinte überarbeitet. Ob dies in einem Arbeitsgang geschah oder ob es sich um eine spätere perfekte Nachbearbeitung handelte, ist ungewiss. Stil und Plastizität der Figuren erinnern mehr an Bruegel als an Bosch, weshalb es nahe läge, die Zeichnung um die Jahrhundertmitte zu datieren. Ringförmige Markierungen über den Köpfen sprechen jedoch dagegen. Sie zeugen von einer Motivauswahl, die wahrscheinlich für die Herstellung von Wandteppichen getroffen wurde. Jedenfalls tauchen mehrere Figuren in einer Brüsseler Tapisserie mit dem heiligen Martin auf. Der im Escorial aufbewahrte Teppich ist Teil einer Serie, die erstmals 1542 im Inventar des französischen Königs Franz I. erwähnt wird (Pokorny 2003, Abb. 6). Dieser Zusammenhang lässt auf eine Entstehung der Zeichnung in den 1530er-Jahren schließen.

Bosch, Bruegel, Rubens, Rembrandt. Meisterwerke der Albertina, hg. von K. A. Schröder und C. Metzger, Albertina, Wien, Ostfildern 2013, Abb. 40, S. 92.

In this drawing, thirty-one men and a small dog

are evenly distributed over the surface before a

neutral background without any hint of a larger

narrative context. Depicted with crutches, bandaged

limbs, and prostheses, the figures all appear to be

in motion despite their disabilities. Together, they

convey the artist’s profound interest in the deformed

human body.

Until the twentieth century, this drawing was

identified as a work by Jheronimus Bosch (c. 1450–

1516). Like its pendant in Brussels,2 it in fact only

harks back to Bosch’s thematic inventions and was

likely executed in the years around 1540, well past

the master’s death. As Kurz first observed, there is a

close connection between some figures in the drawing

and a series of tapestries documented in 1542 as

belonging to the French king Francis I (r. 1515–47).3

The scribbled markings added in graphite above

the heads of several beggars probably indicate those

to be adopted for other works, documenting the

drawing’s function as a pattern sheet.4

An engraving disseminated as a Bosch creation

by Volcxken Diericx’s (c. 1525–1600) Antwerp

publishing house after 1570 conveys the drawing’s

composition in a slightly altered form (fig. 1).5 The

verses added on the print’s lower margin allow us

a glimpse into the defamation of disabled persons

during this period.6 While such depictions awakened

a Christian feeling of benevolence and charity in the

Middle Ages, the age-old concept of a direct causal

link between inward and outward dispositions

assumed new meaning from the fifteenth century

on; any deviation from physiological norms was regarded

as a visible sign of degeneration in character

and morality. Within the context of an increasingly

individualized middle-class society, such deviants

became the targets of scorn and ridicule. As in the

present drawing, physically disabled persons were

often associated with other marginalized groups

such as itinerant musicians, jugglers, and mendicants,

and were deemed social outcasts who had

caused their own regrettable condition.7

This ambivalent treatment of the disenfranchised

is also reflected in the popular writings of the time.

The booklet Der fielen, rabauwen, oft der schalcken

vocabulaer (The vocabulary of rogues, scoundrels, or

villains), published in Antwerp in 1563 but already

approved by state censorship authorities in 1547,

distinguishes between various types of beggars:

while the armen menschen die oudt oft cranck zijn

(poor persons who are old or sick) were judged as

deserving of alms, they were explicitly differentiated

from anderern schalcken (other villains), who, as

this descriptor suggests, were thought to constitute

a danger to the social order.8

 

1. The pejorative cruepelen (cripples) already appears in the

1601 inventory of Volcxken Diericx, who published a print

bearing this inscription and related to the Vienna drawing.

See note 6 and Duverger 1984, 26. Although the drawing is

listed as “Figures de paysans (Peasant Figures)” and as “Fig.

d’une conformation contraire à la nature (Figures Possessing

a Form Contrary to Nature)” in the documentation of the

collection of Duke Albert von Sachsen-Teschen, the title used

here has become established in the art-historical literature.

The Albertina Museum, Vienna, Archive of the Collection,

Cahier, 7798. On the issue of an appropriate terminology for

the investigation of disability in the Middle Ages and the early

modern period, see Godden 2019, 35–36.

2. Unknown Netherlandish artist, Pattern Sheet with “Beggars

and Cripples,” c. 1540, pen and brown ink, red-brown wash,

on paper, 26.5 x 19.9 cm, Koninklijke Bibliotheek, Brussels,

S.II 133708. Koreny considers whether the drawings in Vienna

and Brussels, which are almost identical in size, might be two

parts of a single sheet of paper that had been divided in the

middle; see Koreny 2012, 300–303.

3. Kurz 1967, 158.

4. Pokorny 2003. For other examples of direct and indirect

transfers of motifs from the drawing, see Koreny 2012, 276;

Bass in Bass and Wyckoff 2015, 84–91.

5. The print renders the depiction in the same direction as the

drawing rather than producing a mirror image. Combined with

the figures’ differing spatial configuration and exaggerated

expressivity, this makes a direct connection between the works

improbable and points to a shared common model, lost today.

6. Al dat op den blauwen trughelsack, gheerne left / Gaet meest al

Cruepele, op beijde sijden, / Daerom den Cruepelen Bisscop, veel

dienaers heft, / Die om een vette proue, den rechen ghanck mijen

(Everyone who gladly lives from the blue beggar’s sack / mostly

goes as a cripple, on both sides / and so the cripple-bishop has

many servants / who avoid a proper gait for the sake of a healthy

sum).

7. Vandenbroeck 2001, 112–21; see also Ritter’s essay in this

volume.

8. Der fielen, rabauwen, oft der schalcken vocabulaer (Antwerp:

Jan de Laet, 1563), A5v. For a discussion of the text,

see Pleij 1985, 114–18.

 

Emily J. Peters, Laura M. Ritter (Hg.), AK Tales of the City. Drawing in the Netherlands from Bosch to Bruegel, Cleveland Museum of Art 9.10.2022 - 8.1.2023, New Haven 2022, Kat. Nr. 49