Csornay Boldizsár - Dobos Zsuzsa - Varga Ágota - Zakariás János szerk.: A Szépművészeti Múzeum közleményei 98. (Budapest, 2003)
TÁTRAI, JÚLIA: 'Jacob de Backer invenit' - The Allegory of Smell. A New Aquisition of the Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest
'JACOB DE BACKER INVENIT' - THE ALLEGORY OF SMELL A NEW ACQUISITION OF THE MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS, BUDAPEST More than thirty years ago a study by Agnes Czobor acquainted the public with three paintings then in private ownership in Hungary. The works belong to a series depicting the five senses, and portray the senses of sight, taste and touch in allegorical form. 1 Czobor compared the panel pictures with a series of etchings bearing the inscription 'Jacob de Backer invenit', also depicting the five senses. 2 The compositions of the corresponding works in each series are similar, although Czobor felt that the execution of the paintings was more refined and richer than that of the etchings, which she put forward as an ample proof that the paintings had served as the prototypes for the etchings, and thus, the paintings were created by Jacob de Backer, the mannerist painter from Antwerp. She used a sketch housed in the Prentenkabinet in Leiden to support her argument. 3 She claimed that the sketch had been made for a painting depicting the Sense of Smell, the existence of which was not known at the time of Czobor's work. In the paintings and etchings the senses are personified by the figures of young women, each bearing the appropriate attributes, while mythological scenes related to the five senses appear in the background. With the help of these three paintings and the five etchings. Czobor was able to identify four of the background scenes as episodes from Ovid's Metamorphoses. 4 Later S. Boorsch discovered the source of the background scene of the Sense of Smell in another work by Ovid, the Fasti. 5 In the Sense of Sight, the attributes of the young woman looking in a mirror are an eagle placed at her feet and a sphinx appearing behind her. In the background Narcissus is kneeling at the shore, admiring the reflection of his own face. The figure in the Sense of Taste is holding fruit in one hand, and a knife in the other, while her accompanying animal is a monkey. In the background we can see Persephone as she picks an apple from her husband Hades' tree and transforms the curious Ascalaphus into an owl. In the Sense of Touch, a bird nips the finger of the young woman. In the foreground we see a turtle creeping across, while in the background Pygmalion embraces the statue he made. The female figure in the Sense of Smell leans with one hand on a basket of 1 Czobor, A., "The Five Senses" by the Antwerp Artist Jacob de Backer. Nederlands Kunsthistorisch Jaarbaek 23 (1970) 317-327. 2 Hollstein. W. H., Dutch and Flemish Etchings, Engravings and Woodcuts 1450-1700,1, Amsterdam 1949. p. 52, no. 1-5. 3 Inv. no. AW 961. Ink, brown wash, 200x309 mm. 4 Story of Narcissus: Ovid, Metamorphoses II. 399-510; Persephone and Ascalaphus: V, 534-550; Story of Pygmalion: X. 243-297; Mercurius and Argus: I, 655-717. 5 Boorsch, S., Jacob de Backer's Drawing for the Sense of Smell. Leids Kunsthistorisch Jaarhoek 1 (1982) 367-371. Story of Juno and Flora: Ovid, Fasti V, 229-258.
