PIETER BODDINGH VAN LAER | FIGURES DANCING AROUND A FIRE

William Sharp, Manchester (L.2650)

This very lively and accomplished drawing of a group of figures dancing around a fire is closely comparable in style to some of the very rare drawings of Pieter Boddingh van Laer, one of the most significant of the Dutch artists who worked in Rome in the second quarter of the 17th century. 

The somewhat unruly community of Northern artists in Rome gathered into an informal association, which in some ways paralleled, and was sometimes in conflict with, the official Roman Academy of Saint Luke. This group called itself the 'Schilderbent' ('painters' clique'), and its members were known as 'Bentveughels' ('birds of a feather'), each adopting a special nickname.¹ Van Laer's nickname, 'Bamboccio' (meaning 'clumsy puppet'), was subsequently taken up as the basis for the name of an entire group of artists painting in the same sort of style, who are universally known as the 'Bamboccianti'.  

Van Laer made a famous drawing, now in Berlin, showing the Bentveughels in an inn, drinking, gaming, graffitiing the walls with grotesque caricatures, and generally carousing.² The facial types in that drawing, and the overall way in which the figures are constructed, are both very similar indeed to what we see in the present, previously unknown sheet, and there are also similarities with other firmly attributed drawings by the artist, such as the Rider with a Saddled Horse, signed and dated P van Laer. in Roma. Adi 20 Maert 1628, in the Hamburg Kunsthalle.³ 

It is not clear whether or not this scene of revelry was drawn in Italy, but either way, it is a striking and significant addition to the very small corpus of known drawings by this central figure in the story of the Dutch artist community in Italy in the early 17th century.  

1.  J. Verbene, 'The Bentveughels (1620/1621-1720) in Rome', in P. Schatborn, Drawn to Warmth, 17th-century Dutch artists in Italy, exh. cat., Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, 2001, p. 23

2.  Berlin, SMPK, Kupferstichkabinett, inv. KdZ 5239; Ibid., p. 23, fig. 2

3. Hamburg, Kunsthalle, Inv. Nr. 22093; A. Stefes, Niederländische Zeichnungen 1450-1850. Die Sammlungen der Hamburger Kunsthalle Kupferstichkabinett, 3 vols., Cologne/Weimar/Vienna 2011, vol. 1, pp. 330-31, cat. 560, reproduced vol. 3