Pieter van der HEYDEN after Pieter BRUEGEL The Elder : Big fish eat little fish - 1557
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Engraving, 232 x 295 mm. New Hollstein (Bruegel) 3, 1st state (of 4); New Hollstein (Heyden 146); Hollstein (Bosch) 23.
Impression of the first state (of 4), with Hieronymus Cock’s address.
Fine impression printed on laid watermarked paper: Two crowned Cs intersecting around the cross of Lorraine, similar to Briquet 9327 (Maëstricht, 1596).
Three thin areas on the reverse, one backed, a tiny triangular repaired loss of paper bottom right, a thread, a thin vertical handling or printing crease to the left of the gaping mouth of the fish. Generally in good condition.
Very rare.
Manfred Sellink points out that "the metaphor 'the big fish eat the little fish', which illustrates the enrichment of the powerful at the expense of the poor, spread throughout Europe from antiquity and became very popular in Antwerp, a city of printers, precisely in the 16th century." He points out, however, that in Bruegel's drawing "the largest and most gluttonous fish is thrown back on the shore and disemboweled, so that all the swallowed fish come out of his body and the result of his greed is destroyed." (Manfred Sellink, Bruegel, lʹoeuvre complet - peintures, dessins, gravures, 2007, p. 88, translated by us).
The preparatory drawing for this print, kept in the Albertina in Vienna (inv. 7875), is signed by Bruegel and dated 1556. It is thought that the name Hieronymus Bosch (died 1516) engraved on the print was a commercial choice by Hieronymus Cock, as Bruegel's name was not yet well known.