A Fight Between Two Street Musicians

Entry

This terracotta relief is the only known sculptural work signed by the Amsterdam painter Pieter Jansz Quast (c. 1605/06-1647). The scene shows a confrontation between two street musicians. The musician on the left prepares to swing his club, held with both hands above his head, yet he is restrained by the man standing in front of him and a barefoot youth tugging on his coattails from the rear. The club once held in the hands of his opponent with a wooden leg, survives only in the form of a stub just below his fist, as the rest has broken off.² This second musician is restrained by two women wearing wooden shoes. A begging bowl hangs from the belt of the woman far right. A long-haired dog at the feet of the first musician growls at the violin lying on the ground at the right; together with the musical triangle, it suggests that music was being played just prior to the depicted event. On the basis of the grotesque, caricatural faces, the scene can be interpreted as a satirical tableau meant to ridicule the two men’s objectionable behaviour. Noteworthy in this context is the fact that Quast himself is known to have been involved in a serious physical altercation – documented in a civil act in the year 1643 – sparked by an acquaintance supposedly referring to the artist’s huysvrou (wife) as a whore.³

The present relief was rediscovered as a work by Pieter Quast in 1966 and acquired by the museum from a private collection in Munich.⁴ Despite the absence of documented proof confirming Quast’s activities as a sculptor, the authorship of this terracotta is no matter of debate. The farcical depiction of a brawl fits perfectly with the painter’s repertoire, which includes numerous genre scenes of a satirical nature. Quast often drew his inspiration for such images from the theatrical plays and farces of his day.⁵ The sweeping, sketch-like rendering of the scene is also very much in line with the artist’s style. The inscription on the back of the violin: P. QUAST 1629 (or 1628), incised in the wet clay, designates the relief as a work made in the artist’s youth.⁶ The gold-dust layer applied to the terracotta’s surface is likely original and meant to convey the appearance of brass or bronze.

On the basis of the present signed work, Leeuwenberg convincingly attributed two other reliefs to Pieter Quast’s name.⁷ Both are tavern scenes depicting the five senses (figs. a and b). The first, likewise a terracotta, is held in the collection of the Museum de Lakenhal (Leiden);⁸ the second, carved in walnut and today preserved in Jerusalem, features a long-haired dog virtually identical to that of the Amsterdam relief.⁹ In 2008, another terracotta relief was added to Quast’s sculptural oeuvre , showing the Flagellation of Christ (fig. c) based on the engraving in Dürer’s Great Passion series (RP-P-OB-1164). Noteworthy is that all of the reliefs are furnished with a sloped ground plane that projects outward at the bottom, but leaving space to accommodate a frame.

Of the four compositions cited above, several casts and copies are in circulation.¹⁰ With respect to the Amsterdam relief, the auction catalogue of the estate of the esteemed Amsterdam/Leiden physician and man of letters Govert Bidloo (1649-1713), includes ‘a modelled peasant fight’ (Een Boere Gevecht geboetzeert), which might refer to this, or another version of the composition.¹¹ Furthermore, a plaster replica¹² and a modern copy in walnut are known.¹³ A virtually identical terracotta version, formerly in the possession of the London dealer Chaucer, is larger in size and displays a greater sharpness (fig. d) when compared to the Amsterdam piece. It is paired with a pendant scene of a drinking company, also in terracotta (fig. e).¹⁴ Neither of the two reliefs bears a signature, yet the originality of the second scene suggests we are dealing with an autograph pair. The difference in size and sharpness may perhaps even indicate that the London terracotta was the core model from which the mould for the Amsterdam relief was made. If so, Quast would logically have incised his signature solely in the wet clay of the copy, not the original. The successive firing of the model, the mould and the copy – entailing three shrinkage moments – would otherwise surely have resulted in the reduced legibility of his signature.

Bieke van der Mark, 2024