About this artwork
Prints of animals could be accurate and fanciful simultaneously. This finely engraved yet slightly caricatured scene from Aesop’s Fables depicts a donkey laden with fine food and wine who nonetheless happily gnaws at a prickly thistle instead. Moral interpretations of the text have ranged from “One man’s meat is another man’s poison” to a critique of stinginess. Though unsigned, this humorous image of feast and famine set off a chain of copies, ironically ending with a dozen Aesop roundels that decorated the back of trenchers, wooden plates used for the final fruit and nut course in England.
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Status
- Currently Off View
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Department
- Prints and Drawings
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Artist
- Adriaen Pietersz. van de Venne
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Title
- The Donkey Laden with Food, from Emblematic Figures of Animals
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Place
- Flanders (Artist's nationality:)
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Date
- 1628–1638
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Medium
- Engraving on ivory laid paper
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Dimensions
- Plate: 27.3 × 20.5 cm (10 3/4 × 8 1/8 in.); Sheet: 27.4 × 20.7 cm (10 13/16 × 8 3/16 in.)
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Credit Line
- William McCallin McKee Memorial Endowment
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Reference Number
- 1944.583
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IIIF Manifest
- https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/51392/manifest.json
Extended information about this artwork
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