The Donkey Laden with Food, from Emblematic Figures of Animals

Description

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.

The Donkey Laden with Food, from Emblematic Figures of Animals

Adriaen Pietersz. van de Venne

1633

Accession Number

51392

Medium

Engraving on ivory laid paper

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.)

Classification

engraving

Museum

The Art Institute of Chicago

Chicago, United States

Credit Line

William McCallin McKee Memorial Endowment