Vintage Metal Cigarette Case The Quack Raised Relief Image Jan Steen Alpacca

Description

Vintage German Alpacca Silver Cigarette Case Victoria 60 with Raised Relief Image. Nice condition. Shows age and use. Measures approximately 3” tall, 1” deep, and 2.25” wide. Hinged lid is slightly raised on the right side.
In The Quack, Steen transformed Rembrandt’s Christ into the farcical healer, holding forth on a wooden stage, with an audience of two falsely pious monks, a boy riding a donkey, a fat burgher, and assorted other folk. Also on the stage is a seated man being poked and prodded by two “healers,” who are removing the stone of folly from his head. Most pointedly, the drunken lout in a wheelbarrow pushed by a boorish woman may devolve from Rembrandt’s ill figure lying on a mattress on a wheelbarrow, accompanied by a humble woman wearing an elaborate hood.4 By placing the main figures at the center, Steen departed from his earlier method of composing a village event, as in the Village Fair; such a central organization is reminiscent of the Hundred Guilder Print.