PIETER DE BLOOT | PARABLE OF THE BLIND LEADING THE BLIND

Anonymous sale, London, Christie's, 19 November 1920, lot 53, to Knoedler;

Private collection, Holland, 1934; 

Dr. H.P. Bremmer, The Hague, 1956;

F.C. Butôt, Sankt Gilgen, Austria;

Anonymous sale, Amsterdam, Sotheby's Mak van Waay, 22 April 1980, lot 10, when acquired.

J. Briels, Vlaamse schilders in de Noordelijke Nederlanden in het begin van de Gouden Eeuw 1585-1630, Haarlem 1987, p. 140, reproduced in colour fig. 163;

W. Pijbes, M. Aarts, M. J. Bok et al., At Home in the Golden Age, exh. cat., Zwolle 2008, p. 72 cat. no. 54, reproduced in colour;

H.-J. Raupp (ed.), Niederländische Malerei des. 17. Jahrhunderts der SØR Rusche-Sammlung, vol. 4, Historien und Allegorien, Münster/Hamburg/London 2010, pp. 58–62, cat. no. 3, reproduced in colour.

Amsterdam, P. de Boer, De helsche en de fluweelen Brueghel en hun invloed op de kunst in de Nederlanden, 10 February – 26 March 1934, no. 101;

Oelde, Rathaus, Niederländische Originalgemälde der Zeitgenossen Rembrandt Harmesz. van Rijn, 30 November – 17 December 1983;

Rotterdam, Kunsthal, At Home in the Golden Age, 9 February – 18 May 2008, cat. no. 54. 

The SØR Rusche Collection has been exhibited extensively over the last two decades. Please click here for further information.

‘The blind leading the blind’ is a metaphor that is believed to originate in the Upanishads - ancient Sanskrit texts dating back to 800 BC that contain some of the central precepts of Hinduism and Buddhism. The idiom has been echoed in philosophical and religious writings ever since, including Matthew 15:14: ‘And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch.’ It is this Biblical verse that Pieter Bruegel the Elder brought to life in perhaps the most famous visual depiction of the phrase - the distemper on canvas painting, dated 1568, today in the Museo di Capodimonte, Naples.[1] It seems highly probable that this work was known to De Bloot, who has translated the different characterisations and diagonal composition of Bruegel’s painting into his own distinctive artistic vocabulary.

De Bloot was born to Flemish parents, but lived his whole life in Rotterdam. Nevertheless he was heavily influenced by Flemish painting, particularly that of David Teniers the Younger, and is best known for his depictions of genre subjects.

1 http://www.pieterbruegel.net/object/the-parable-of-the-blind