Hurdy-Gurdy Player

Entry

In the art of the Low Countries, peasants, beggars and vagrants were often presented by and for the social upper class as negative role models serving to confirm their own superiority. Poverty and begging were initially seen in a positive light, as mendicants, after all, inspired the giving of alms. From the sixteenth century on, however, the poor and downtrodden beggar began to take on a more negative association, with poverty viewed as a threat to society’s well-being in the form of laziness and wastefulness. Civic culture and a sense of public moral duty were firmly rooted in notions of stability, family life and work ethic. As these values came to be more highly regarded, the beggar found himself increasingly relegated to the position of a socially undesirable figure. Besides deformity, invalidity and delinquency, lunacy was also attributed to such persons, who were (consequently) considered amusing and comical. Coinciding with the emergence and flourishing of civic culture in the late fifteenth century, mendicant figures also began to appear in Netherlandish art. Only in the eighteenth century would the theme undergo a certain process of aestheticization, becoming a picturesque and entertaining theme versus a crude, negative model.¹

The profession of street musician – like the hurdy-gurdy player depicted here – was judged disreputable, as was that of other itinerant types, e.g. performance artists, rat catchers, quacksalvers and scissors sharpeners. In art, characters of this kind were often paired with ‘bona fide’ beggars.² Even early on, hurdy-gurdy players were seen as prototypes of the blind beggars found in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Flemish and Netherlandish art, though they also commonly appear in French and Spanish painting.³ Invariably, these figures are accompanied by a young helper and/or a dog. The present sitting hurdy-gurdy player possesses all the characteristics typically associated with street musicians: ragtag attire, wearing tattered shoes and socks and a dilapidated hat, and having long hair. His grimace is repulsive, while his empty gaze betrays his blindness. A little dog lies between his feet. The anonymous sculptor who modelled this bronze chose for a pose based on an ostensible ‘contrapposto’, with one leg resting solidly on the ground with the other leg dangling free, and an emphatic distinction between the tilted shoulders and the sidelong positioning of the head. This instils liveliness in the beggar’s figure and creates a dynamic composition, thus distinguishing this piece from most of the other bronzes in this genre.⁴

The Hurdy-Gurdy Player belongs to a small group of chiefly bronze beggars and tronies, traditionally seen as works of Netherlandish production. The majority are substantially smaller in size than the present bronze, moreover simple in modelling and casting.⁵ Most likely is that these elementary bronzes were produced in the late seventeenth century or the first half of the eighteenth century in Antwerp, where this so-called lowlife genre also flourished in painting. A strong indicator of this origin is the bronze group of two sitting troublemakers, one shown filling his pipe and the other holding a beer tankard.⁶ In composition and iconography, the group is a variant of a large, signed terracotta group by the Antwerp sculptor Jan Pieter van Baurscheit I, today preserved in the Rijksmuseum (BK-2006-19).⁷ The same two figures again appear in virtually identical form as two individual statuettes, as does a variant of the man with the beer tankard.⁸ While less refined than Baurscheit’s group, all these works are clearly derived from it, thus providing a strong indication of the composition’s popularity. Other statuettes from the same group centre on subjects such as standing peasant couples, beggars and peddlers, typically resting on square bases and executed in the form of rather heavy brass casts.⁹ Also commonly encountered are miniature bust depictions of ‘tronies’, i.e. actors with grimacing facial expressions, and farcical parodies of Heraclitus and Democritus.¹⁰ First to introduce the beggar genre in the Dutch Republic was the Antwerp sculptor Pieter Xaveri (1647-1673), who produced a number of terracotta genre figures in Leiden in the 1670s, including a Hurdy-Gurdy Player in the Rijksmuseum (BK-1978-36).

A presumed later version of the present Hurdy-Gurdy Player also exists.¹¹ Forming its pendant is the figure of a woman fortune teller, accompanied by a cat, which emerges halfway from beneath her skirt. Given the striking agreement in style, pose and size, both bronze statuettes were unquestionably conceived as pendants. Like this work, the Amsterdam bronze also probably had a female pendant.

The popularity of the beggar’s genre in cabinet sculpture was by no means limited to the Low Countries. Because of their picturesque and comical character, comparable figures were in great demand during the eighteenth century, particularly in France, with statuettes executed in bronze, ivory and porcelain.¹² Consequently, a number of the bronze figures traditionally attributed to the Netherlands may have been produced in France. This could also be the case with the present Hurdy-Gurdy Player, which, with its careful modelling, refined finishing, rich patina and larger scale, clearly surpasses the majority of these figures. To be considered is a Flemish model entering French hands, thereafter refined, cast and finished according to a local predilection for deep ruddy, transparent patinas. The alloy composition and casting technique suggest that the present bronze was made in the nineteenth or early twentieth century.

Frits Scholten, 2025