After Pieter Bruegel the Elder
1525 - 1569
1559 c.
222 x 294 mm
Bastelaer, p. 47, n. 136 only state; Nadine Orenstein, p. 183 n. 69 I/II
Provenance: Ed. Schultze Collection, Wien, 1900 c. (Lugt 906)
Inscribed at lower right: ‘Brugel Inu’, at lower center: ‘Prudentia’, at lower left ‘Cock exc’; in the lower margin: ‘Si prudens esse cupis, in futurum prospectum ostende, et / quae possunt contingere, animo tuo cuncta propone’.
From the Series ‘The Seven Virtues’, 1559 – 60.
Very fine impression, well-inked, printed with plate-tone on paper with watermark ‘Gothic P’, in the first state of two, according to Nadine Orenstein.
In pristine conditions, cut between platemark and borderline, the guidelines of the inscription still visible. Backed with ancient paper. Small printer crease in the right corner.
The preparatory drawing, signed and dated 1559, is preserved in the Museum of Fine Arts of Belgium and Bruxelles (inv. T.59, M 144)
