Preview
Creation Date
ca. 1632
Geography
France
Culture
French
Medium
Etching
Dimensions
With frame: 10 × 12 × 1 1/4 in. (25.4 × 30.5 × 3.2 cm)
Credit Line
Long-term Loan from the Estate of Boris Blick, 2015
Accession Number
2015.84
Provenance
Purchased by Boris Blick from a couple of dealers in pre-Modern prints at a show sponsored by the Print Club of Cleveland, probably in the late 1990s.
Signatures, Inscriptions, and Markings
Within image, lower left: "2. Iſrael excud. cum privil. Reg."; lower right "2."
Paper on back of frame: "JAQUES CALLOT / (1592–1635) / L'ATTAQUE SUR LA ROUTE / (1633) / LiEVRE 1334 / FROM LES PETTiES MiSERES DE LA GUERRE"
Rubber stamp on back of frame: "DENIS CONLEY GALLERY / 1936 W. Market St. / Akron, Ohio 44314 / 330-836-9044"
References
Hornstein, Katie. "Just Violence: Jacques Callot’s Grandes Misères et Malheurs de la Guerre." Bulletin: The University of Michigan Museums of Art and Archeology 16 (2005). http://hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.0054307.0016.102.
Creator Biography
Jacques Callot, French, 1592–1635 (etcher).
Description
Scene depicting an outdoor battle with figures fighting in hand to hand combat and armed with guns, swords, and spears. A man is hanging from a tree in the background.
The Thirty Years’ War was tearing apart and reassembling Europe when Callot returned from Italy to his hometown of Nancy, France near the end of his life. The region of Lorraine would feel first-hand the conflict, and Callot would record it. His last great series of etchings Les Grandes Misères et Malheurs de la Guerre depicted the “Miseries and Misfortunes of War” and was preceded by “The Small” or “Les Petites” Misères de la Guerre, a series of seven prints, including a title print, of which this is the second and only print labeled with its number in both the lower left and right corners. These war-torn prints may even have influenced Francisco de Goya’s (1746–1828) 82 prints of “The Disasters of War,” Los Desastres de la Guerra, two-hundred years later.
Plate 2 from Les Petites Misères de la Guerre (The small miseries of war), "L'Attaque sur la Route" ("Attack on the Road") is one of seven prints, including a title print, in the series.
For more information:
Meaume, Édouard. Recherches sur la vie et les ouvrages de Jacques Callot suite au Peintre-graveur français de M. Robert-Dumesnil. Tome 2. Paris: Vve J. Renouard, 1860.
For information on this specific print, see section titled "557-573. Les Petites misères de la guerre," 263–264.