Description:

oil on paper, laid on panel
182 x 239 mm

Provenance:

Acquired by the present owner in 1990s

Note:

This oil sketch depicts two of Karel Dujardin’s favourite and most frequently treated subjects: the mule and the donkey. The three animals with their exotic head-dresses relate to a trio in a painting by Dujardin at the Rijksmuseum, entitled Muleteers at an Inn, dated c. 1658-1660. With minor variations to its panniers and accoutrements the central mule reoccurs frequently within Dujardin’s oeuvre: first appearing in an etching of 1652, which shows the mule in reverse; secondly in a painting of 1657 at the Musée du Louvre, Les Charlatans Italiens; and thirdly in a painting on panel, measuring 305 x 241 mm, which was with Agnew's in c. 1971. Unlike the other depictions of the central mule, there is no plume above the central mule’s head in the present work.