After Peter Bruegel the Elder The Donkey at School,... Lot 1

After Peter Bruegel the Elder The Donkey at School, 1557, burin by Pieter van der Heyden, 23.5 x 30 m, large margins (27 x 35.5 cm) (van Bastelaer 142, Lebeer 17, Orenstein & Seelink 41, New Hollstein 32 i/i), fine and rare proof, watermark: Gothic P, soiling, dampening and light stains in the upper and lower margins, tears, small lacks in the lower margin, tear reaching the lower left corner but not entering the subject. This plate, engraved after a drawing now in the Berlin Kupferstichkabinett (inv. KdZ 11641), is one of the earliest and most famous depictions of school education. The numerous schoolchildren of contrasting ages are divided into several unequal groups in apparent disorder. While some seem busy reading, others are playing, grimacing or dozing, as if left to their own devices. At the center of the drawing, the master corrects a probable recalcitrant with his hand, while a donkey symbolically dominates this place where the transmission of knowledge takes a carnivalesque turn. The legend goes like this: "If you send a stupid donkey to Paris, if it's a donkey here, it won't be a horse there / Although the donkey goes to school to learn, if it's a donkey, it won't come back as a horse".