- Museum number
- F,6.158
- Title
- Object: Democritus Heraclitus
- Description
-
Democritus laughing and Heraclitus weeping in front of a globe. 1650s
Etching
- Production date
- 1650-1660
- Dimensions
-
Height: 240 millimetres
-
Width: 323 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- (Text from Antony Griffiths, 'The Print in Stuart Britain', BM 1998, cat.108)
Gaywood copied indiscrimately from French, Dutch and Italian sources. This is an example of his copying that is rather more creative than usual. He gives due credit to Rembrandt for the invention ('RH invent'), and the two figures originally appeared in two of his paintings: the laughing Democritus is based on a laughing man with a gorget (Mauritshuis), while the weeping Heraclitus is taken from the repentant Judas in a painting of 1629 (in an English private collection). Rembrandt's pupil Jan van Vliet made etchings of both heads in c.1634 as part of a set of six 'tronies' (studies of heads of interesting characters: see 'Rembrandt & Van Vliet: a collaboration on copper' by C.Schuckman, M.Royalton-Kisch and E.Hinterding, Museum Het Rembrandthuis, Amsterdam 1996, pp.51-56). It was these that Gaywood combined and turned into a pair that he identified as Democritus and Heraclitus.
The classical philosophers Democritus and Heraclitus were linked even in antiquity as offering opposite reactions to their shared perception of the absurdity of humanity: Democritus laughed, while Heraclitus wept. This theme became immensely popular in seventeenth-century art and literature (see A.Blankert in 'Nederland Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek', XVIII 1967, pp.31-124). Robert Burton called himself Democritus junior on the titlepage of his Anatomy of Melancholy of 1621.
In a later state of this plate published by Overton, Gaywood's name was taken out and Hollar's substituted (Pennington 258A) - an early example of the tendency of Hollar's posthumous vogue to accrete unrelated prints into his oeuvre. Vliet's figure of Heraclitus was lifted in 1658 a second time by the engraver Robert Vaughan for use (again as Heraclitus) at the bottom of the titlepage of a book by Richard Barthwait, 'The honest ghost or a voice from the vault' (Hind III 70.71).
Other English prints of this subject are recorded. On 5 April 1656 Thomas Warren entered in the Stationers Register 'Democritus and Heraclitus with a globe betwix them' as one of seven sheets of 'portratures cutt in wood'. A mezzotint titled 'Hiraclitus et Democritus' after a painting by Egbert van Heemskerk was published by John Smith towards the end of the century (BM 1876-11-11-69), and another version, signed T.B., is to be found in the Bagford collection (Harley 5949, f.23).
Additional lit.: C. T. Seifert, 'Rembrandt: Britain's Discovery of the Master' Edinburgh, exh.cat. 2018, no. 85.
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
2000 Jan-Mar, Ipswich, Christchurch Mansion, Printmaking in Stuart Britain
2000 May-Jul, Bristol, City Mus and AG, Printmaking in Stuart Britain
2000 Oct-Dec, Lancaster, Peter Scott Gallery, Printmaking in Stuart Britain
2000/1 Dec-Feb, Banff, Duff House, Printmaking in Stuart Britain
2001 Feb-May, Cardiff, National Mus, Printmaking in Stuart Britain
2018 7 Jul-14 Oct, Edinburgh, Scottish National Gallery, "Rembrandt & Britain"
- Acquisition date
- 1799
- Acquisition notes
- laid down on a backing sheet, but monogram and date visible through the paper
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- F,6.158