30. Pieter Nolpe
(1613/14-1652/53)

Four Gentlemen Playing Backgammon

(click on image to print)
Nolpe, Four Gentlemen

Four Gentlemen Playing Backgammon

Etching and engraving, 130 x 172 mm., Hollstein 280 i/ii, Dozy 211, ex collections: Franz Rechberger (Lugt 2133); Hamburg Kunsthalle (L. 1328); AT (L. 183); Sylvan Cole private collection. A fine, rather delicate, impression on old, thin laid paper with narrow margins; pale staining throughout. The print is of considerable rarity and is lacking even in the vast British Museum collection. The image, though focusing on the game and the four well-dressed men playing and observing it, also shows a couple in a back room by a bed, a strong indication that the scene takes place in a brothel. Nolpe was an almost exact contemporary of van Ostade and did similar genre scenes. However, he also essayed large prints of religious subjects, festivals, city views and landscapes.