signed and dated ‘W. Hollar fecit 1645’ (in the plate)
etching, fragmentary watermark foolscap
7.3 x 11.2 cm (plate); 8.3 x 12.4 cm (sheet)
Pennington 1947; The New Hollstein 794, second and final state [1]
A good impression with only some faint signs of wear, the paper is somewhat (unevenly) discoloured, the upper right corner is slightly thinner, there is a foxmark in the right margin, the sheet is in otherwise good condition

The cosmopolitan artist Wenceslaus Hollar, who was born in Prague and subsequently travelled and worked in Germany, The Netherlands, England and Marocco, left a monumental and varied œuvre of well over 2000 prints. Judging his astonishingly large output, the artist must have worked tirelessly, something that is confirmed in a letter from 1716 by Hollar’s contemporary, the York artist Francis Place (1647-1728), who stated that Hollar “[…] was always uneasie if not at work”. [2] The artist’s vast œuvre, furthermore, consists of prints showing an incredibly wide range of subjects including countless portraits, allegories, topographical views, maritime subjects, genre pieces, natural history subjects and still-lifes. While many of Hollar’s portraits and topographical prints can indeed be regarded “second or third-rate hackwork’’ as Griffiths and Kesnerová have observed, [3] the artist’s still-lifes showing insects, shells and, of course, muffs, not only stand out within the artist’s œuvre, but are indeed amongst the finest and most original etchings produced in the 17th century.

The etchings showing muffs were almost all executed during the artist’s years in Antwerp, where Hollar arrived in 1644 and where he would stay until 1652. The present etching showing a muff and a boa casually laid on a table was made in 1645, not long after the artist’s arrival in Antwerp. Griffiths and Kesnerová have described the group of etchings showing muffs as “prints that are still extraordinary for the almost fetishistic delight expressed in the , which gives them an isolated position in seventeenth-century etching”. [4] Undoubtedly popular during their lifetime – as evidenced by the many impressions that were pulled from the plates – these prints are still appreciated today for their brilliant rendering of the fur, their subject matter and intimacy as well as their apparent simplicity.

[1] S. Turner, 'The New Hollstein. German Engravings, Etchings and Woodcuts. 1400-1700. Wenceslaus
Hollar. Part III', Ouderkerk aan den Ijssel, 2010.
[2] See A. Griffiths and G. Kesnerová, 'Wenceslaus Hollar. Prints and Drawings from the collections of the National Gallery, Prague, and the British Museum, London', London, 1983, p. 3.
[3] A. Griffiths and G. Kesnerová, 'op. cit'., p. I.
[4] A. Griffiths and G. Kesnerová, 'ibid'., p. 45.