Baltens engraving

PIETER BALTENS              Antwerp c. 1526/8 – 1584  Antwerp

The Evening of the Wedding.

Engraving.  Hollstein 4. Extremely rare; Hollstein cited only one impression, that in the collection of Friedrich August. A very fine impression; trimmed just into the white space below the inscription, to the work on the right and trimmed fractionally into the work at the left.

The subject was elucidated by Konrad Rengerwho noted that the subject represented a satire, perhaps cruel to present sensibilities, of the bride’s fears of sexual pain on her wedding night. She is surrounded by jeering men, among them  a bagpipe player. She carries a lit candle and and a pisspot, which along with the bagpipe refers to her initiation into sex. The inscription at the bottom of the sheet explains that her pain will shortly turn to laughter.

Until relatively recently, Baltens’ work had been confused with that of Pieter Bruegel. Indeed the two collaborated on a now destroyed altarpiece in Mechelen, and other collaborative works, this collaboration confirmed by copies after Pieter Bruegel, the Younger of Baltens’ Ecce Homo.

Baltens was active as a an engraver; our Evening of the Wedding demonstrates his interest in popular themes, and his skill at conveying such themes with considerable directness.

Sheet:  177 x 229 mm    7 x 9 1/16 inches

Konrad Renger, Tränen in der Hochzeitsnacht. Das Zubettbringen der Braut, ein vergessenes Thema der niederländishchen Malerei,in Festschrift für Otto von Simson, Frankfurt 1977, pp. 310-327.