L'Enrôlement des troupes (The Recruitment of Troops ; The Enlisting of the Troops), Plate 2 from the series Les Grandes Misères et malheurs de la guerre (The Large Miseries and Misfortunes of War)

Inscriptions

Inscribed, in plate, within image, lower right: Israel ex. Cum. Priuilegio Regis; inscribed, in graphite, lower right margin: 2; inscribed, in graphite, on support, upper right: 244/18; inscribed, in graphite, on support, lower right: 1340; Watermark, lower center: [cut off] [under image] [indistinct]

Label

Between 1618 and 1648, several European nations clashed in what became known as the Thirty Years War. Nominally a dispute about religious freedom, the conflict enabled the French, Swedish, Germans, and Spanish to jockey against one another for power and territory. Made in the middle of the war, Jacques Callot’s eighteen-print series of the Great Miseries brings attention to the plight of the people of these nations, who suffered at the expense of their rulers’ power grabs, including the soldiers themselves. In this image, well-dressed generals recruit foot soldiers. Grouped together, the soldiers lose their individuality, becoming nameless fighters for their nation.

From the 2023 exhibition Recording War: Images of Violence 1500 – 1900, curated by Elizabeth Rice Mattison, Andrew W. Mellon Associate Curator of Academic Programming

Exhibition History

A Gift to the College: The Mr. and Mrs. Adolph Weil Jr. Collection of Master Prints, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, October 17-December 20, 1998.

Fatal Consequences: Callot, Goya, and the Horrors of War, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, September 9-December 12, 1990.

Piranesi-Goya; Roma fantastica and the Sleep of Reason and Francisco Goya and Jake & Dinos Chapman: Disasters of War, The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, September 27, 2001-March 17, 2002.

Recording War: Images of Violence, 1500-1900, Ivan Albright Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, May 20-August 20, 2023.

The Four Faces of War: Callot, Goya, Kollwitz and Bellows, The William Benton Museum of Art, University of Connecticut, Storrs, Connecticut, October 23-December 22, 2004.

Publication History

Timothy Rub, Egbert Haverkamp-Begemann, Kelly Pask, "A Gift to the College: The Mr. and Mrs. Adolph Weil Jr. Collection of Master Prints", Hanover, New Hampshire: Trustees of Dartmouth College, 1998, listed, p.84, no. 36.

Goldfarb, Hilliard T., Wolf, Reva. "Fatal Consequences: Callot, Goya, and the Horrors of War." Hanover, New Hampshire: Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, page 28 (illustration) and page 83.

Provenance

Kennedy Galleries, Inc., New York, 1975; Christie's, New York, November 2, 1983, lot 18 (bought in); sold to Adolph Weil, Jr., Montgomery, Alabama, privately after the sale; given to present collection, 1991.

Catalogue Raisonne

Lieure 1340

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