Self-Portrait with Magic Scene
Pieter van Laer
(Haarlem 1599 – 1642 Italy?)ca. 1635–37
oil on canvas
80 x 114.9 cm
signed on the music sheet, lower left center:“P.V. Laer”
PvL-100© 2020 The Leiden CollectionSelf-Portrait with Magic Scene
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How to cite
Liedtke, Walter A. and Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. “Self-Portrait with Magic Scene” (2017). Revised by Alexa J.
McCarthy (2019). In The Leiden Collection Catalogue, 2nd ed. Edited by Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. New York,2017–20. https://theleidencollection.com/artwork/self-portrait-with-magic-scene/ (archived May 2020).
A PDF of every version of this entry is available in this Online Catalogue's Archive, and the Archive ismanaged by a permanent URL. New versions are added only when a substantive change to the narrative
occurs.

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In one of the most remarkable self-portraits ever created, Pieter van Laer

Comparative Figures

reacts with horror to the frightening claws of the devil that have suddenly
come to claim him. Dressed in the black cloak and cap of a magician, theartist, with bulging eyes and open mouth, has witnessed this apparition while
standing behind a table filled with books, some with alchemical notations, avariety of vessels, a snuffed-out candle, and a skull resting on hot coals. To
emphasize the personal character of this dramatic image, Van Laerprominently signed this work on the musical score lying in the foreground, its
lyrics warning that “the devil doesn’t jest.” Clearly, in his conjuring up aworld of occult forces, the magician has unleashed realms far beyond his
control, and he is about to suffer the consequences of his audacity.
The magician’s identification as Van Laer is without question. His
appearance is best known from a moody self-portrait in the Uffizi, Florence (fig 1).[1] That work, which probably dates about 1632–33, records a numberof distinctive features similar to those in the present picture: a broad, brushy,

Fig 1. Pieter vanLaer, Self-Portrait, ca. 1632–33, oil
on panel, 72 x 58 cm, Galleria
degli Uffizi, Florence, © 2015,
Photo Scala, Florence, courtesy of
the Ministero Beni e Att. Culturali

upturned mustache, a short beard, a slim nose with a rounded tip, widely
arching eyebrows, and a shaggy haircut flaring sideways at the ears.
The darkness of the scene, which is partially lit by a metal oil lamp hanging in
the upper left, and the strange array of objects on the magician’s table
denote Van Laer’s macabre fascination with the underworld. The
extinguished candle in the center of the picture has burned halfway down,
perhaps suggesting the arrival of death midway through the course of one’s
life. A thin trail of smoke rising from the upside-down skull, which sits on
glowing embers, probably indicates that some unsavory concoction is being
heated in this morbid cooking pot.[2] Various vessels contain unidentified

Fig 2. Pieter van Laer, The
Bentveughels in a Roman Tavern,
ca. 1630, brown ink and wash on
paper, 20.3 x 25.8 cm,
Kupferstichkabinet, Staatliche
Museen zu Berlin, inv. 5239

liquids—a small mixing bowl filled with a red substance and a square bottle
containing a copper-colored fluid—that one can imagine the magician using tocreate his potions. The eeriest of these vessels is the tapered glass withblack creatures crawling on its surface. The creature that resembles a spider
in the center foreground is most likely a deadly scorpion.
The pellets or seeds spilling out of a paper cone in the right foreground could
be another ingredient for the magician’s brew, or perhaps an allusion to the
Parable of the Tares (or Weeds) in Matthew 13:24–30 and 36–43, according
to which the devil sows the seeds of sinful men among the seeds of those
who will be saved. The parable was frequently employed by preachers of thetime and was also treated by artists—for example, by Jacques de Gheyn II(1565–1629) in a drawing of 1603, by Domenico Fetti (1588/89–1623) in a
Fig 3. Gianlorenzo Bernini, The© 2020 The Leiden CollectionSelf-Portrait with Magic Scene
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painting of about 1622, and by Abraham Bloemaert (1566–1651) in apainting of 1624.[3]Damned Soul, 1619, marble,
Palazzo di Spagna, Rome

The books on the table are not identified by authors’ names or titles, whichis to be expected considering their likely content. Publications dealing withoccult knowledge were included among the thousands of works listed in the
Index Librorum Prohibitorum (Index of Prohibited Books), which was
frequently updated by the Congregation of the Index, the pope, and the Holy
Office of the Inquisition; any knowledge of them could have landed Van Laerin difficult circumstances. The handwritten markings on the end of the largest
book may be the artist’s approximation of Hebrew letters or a magicalalphabet, suggesting heretical or esoteric ideas.[4] The symbols in the open
book appear to be associated with magic and witchcraft, although the exact
meanings of most of them are no longer understood.
[6]

inverted pentagram, however, represents the devil.

[5]

The five-pointed

The pierced heart likely

Fig 4. Angelo Caroselli, La
Negromante, ca. 1625, oil oncanvas, 44 x 35 cm, Pinacoteca
Civica “F. Podesti” – Ancona

suggests suffering (especially from love), grief, or death. As is common inalchemical scenes of the seventeenth century, the individual motifs andsymbols do not add up to a coherent message but rather create an
atmosphere of illicit pursuits.
The prominent sheet of music that contains the artist’s signature is identified
as a “Canon a 3 [voci]” (canon, or round, for three voices), specifically threetenors, according to the key indicated on the staff. Van Laer’s canon
appears to be composed either in the Phrygian mode, which descends in asequence called a “diabolus in musica,” or as the sketch of a “crabFig 5. Pietro Paolini, Negromante,
ca. 1630, oil on canvas, 70 x 93
cm, Collezione Cavallini Sgarbi,
Ferraracanon” (canon cancrizans), in which two musical lines reverse each other.[7]The crab is known for its back and forth movement, just as the devil runs
counter to the divine plan.[8] In either case, the lyrics, “il diavolo no burla no ildiav . . . a” (the devil doesn’t jest no the devil . . .), leave no doubt as to thewarning that the painting conveys.
Although this painting is primarily concerned with the occult and witchcraft, it
has certain resonances with alchemy. The alchemist’s labors were intimately
bound to the study and early practice of chemistry, and a huge amount ofliterature evolved in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries explaining thetypes of physical matter and the processes by which one could conduct
experiments to transform one element into another. It was, for many, arespectable profession, and its scholarly component is evident in the list ofsignificant scientists who sought to separate the essence of matter from its
base components, among them Robert Boyle (1627–91) and Sir Isaac
Newton (1642–1727).[9] Many alchemists made significant scientific© 2020 The Leiden CollectionSelf-Portrait with Magic Scene
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contributions to the development of, among other items, medicines andcosmetics, as well as pigments and dyes. Nevertheless, alchemy’s
ambiguous status in popular culture derived from its origins in naturalphilosophy, metaphysics, and religion. Alchemists were secretive about theprocesses that allowed them to make their transformations, and their texts
and treatises utilized a wide range of occult signs and symbols similar to
those seen in the open manuscript in Van Laer’s haunting painting.
Too little is known of Van Laer’s life to fully understand the psychologicalunderpinnings that undoubtedly impacted this terrifying vision and drove him
to paint it. Perhaps his interest in witchcraft derived from his deformed
body—hunchbacked with a lower body three times larger than his torso. In
Rome, where he painted this work in the mid-1630s, he was known as “ilBamboccio” (clumsy puppet) because of his stunted torso. In his day,exposure to witchcraft was often said (especially by eager Inquisitors) toresult in physical deformity.
Van Laer had a successful career in Rome, but he also seems to have lived
a raucous life as part of a group of Netherlandish artists, the Schildersbent(painters’ group), who called themselves Bentvueghels (usually translated as“birds of a feather,” but in this case meaning “The Bent Flock”). The
fraternity was known for its frolicsome meetings in taverns, especially its
bacchic initiation rites and its antagonistic stance toward the high-minded
Accademia di San Luca. This community of artists, however, also seems tohave shared in Van Laer’s fascination with the occult. This interest is seen in
an intriguing painting by Van Laer’s brother, Roeland van Laer (1598–ca.
1635), from around 1626, that depicts the Bentvueghels wildly drinking andperforming a tableau vivant in a tavern during some sort of initiation rite.[10]Graffiti—including proverbs, exhortations, a depiction of a flaming heartpierced by an arrow, and the same musical score that Pieter van Laer
included in his painting—covers the back wall of the room. Interestingly,
Roeland signed his painting on that score, just as Pieter would later do in
Self-Portrait with Magic Scene.[11]In about 1630 Pieter van Laer made a fascinating drawing of the
Bentveughels in a tavern, which also includes motifs also relevant to thepresent painting (fig 2).[12] The drawing depicts members of the
Bentveughels drinking, smoking, playing backgammon, and vocalizing in aroom decorated with numerous line drawings on the back wall. Two figures
stand apart from the revelers, one pointing at the word “BAMBOO” (anabbreviation for Bamboccio), and the other leaning against the back wall.
© 2020 The Leiden CollectionSelf-Portrait with Magic Scene
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Between them two drawings on the back wall depict Van Laer, one ageometric cartoon of his short figure as seen from behind and the other acaricature of his head in profile. Ominously, however, on the right side of thewall is a drawing of a large skeleton (Death) holding up an hourglass, andnext to it a large, full-length horned figure with satyr’s legs and wings holdingout a claw-like hand not unlike the outstretched claws in the painting.[13] The
overall appearance of this creature is in complete accord with contemporary
illustrations of the devil, such as those in the 1608 “book of witches,”
titled Compendium Maleficarum, by the Italian priest Guaccius (Francesco
Maria Guazzo).[14] This macabre juxtaposition of a festive gathering withdrawings of Death and the devil suggests that complex feelings andemotions were ingrained in the lives of the Bentvueghels, not just in Van
Laer’s experience.
Van Laer’s self-portrait shares an interest in rendering the passions thencurrent in Italian and Netherlandish studios in Rome. Caravaggio(1571–1610), in particular, was fascinated by the challenge of depicting theemotions of fear and surprise.[15] Van Laer would have known and admired
Caravaggio’s Boy Bitten by a Lizard of about 1593–94 (National Gallery,
London); Head of Medusa, of 1596–98 (Uffizi, Florence); the astonished
Assyrian in Judith and Holofernes, of about 1598–99 (Palazzo Barberini,Rome); and his later David with the Head of Goliath, of 1605–10 (Galleria
Borghese, Rome).[16] One of the most important antecedents for Van Laer’s
screaming self-portrait was probably the famous marble bust by Gianlorenzo
Bernini (1598–1680), The Damned Soul of 1619 (fig 3), in which the artist
also employed his own features in his representation of a mortal on his way
to hell.[17]Paintings from the 1620s and early 1630s depicting scenes of the occult byAngelo Caroselli (1585–1653) and his student and collaborator Pietro Paolini(1603–81) must have also influenced Van Laer.[18] Caroselli and Paolini, whoworked together in Rome in the 1620s, painted necromancers, or
practitioners of black magic, whose facial expressions are reminiscent of
Caravaggio’s Boy Bitten by a Lizard.[19] Their depictions of the occult reflect
Bartolomeo Manfredi’s (1582–1622) manner of painting genre scenes, which
are imbued with emotion, fantastic elements, and moralistic undertones.[20]The influence of this pictorial tradition is strikingly evident in Van Laer’s selfportrait.
In Caroselli’s paintings, female necromancers express fear as they recoilwith raised hands, open mouths, and furrowed brows.[21] For example, the© 2020 The Leiden CollectionSelf-Portrait with Magic Scene
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sorceress in his Negromante of about 1625 (fig 4) exclaims in terror as sheturns away from the spindly claws that enter the composition at left. These
claws would have been understood as manifestations of the evil spirit
invoked by the ritual.[22] In the foreground, a skull rests upon burning embers
beside an open book displaying symbols of the occult. A lit candle protrudes
from the center of a geometric diagram on one page that likely represents a
maze or labyrinth.[23] Behind the necromancer, a nude figure carries a childtoward sacrificial flames, reinforcing the sorceress’s malevolent intentions.
In his Negromante of about 1630 (fig 5), Paolini reimagined Caroselli’s
subject as a male protagonist with outstretched arms, recoiling in fear fromclaws entering from the right.[24] Like Caroselli, Paolini included a skull and abook, a page of which is partially turned, suggesting that the figure’s pursuitof magic has been interrupted by the sudden appearance of a clawed
specter. The motif of the skull on burning coals, present in all three artists’compositions, suggests the relationship between the black arts and death,and also serves as a link between the practitioner and the realm of thespirits.[25] In his rendering of the subject, Van Laer heightened the sense of
surprise and immediacy through virtuosic chiaroscuro, particularly evident in
his terrified expression and the chaotic arrangement of foreboding still-lifeelements that occupy the foreground.
No information is known about the original destination of Van Laer’s
remarkable self-portrait, but it seems probable that he created this frightening
image from some inner motivation rather than to fulfill a commission.
Nevertheless, during the early seventeenth century a painting like this would
have appealed to Van Laer’s Roman patrons because of the wider artistic
interest in intense visual drama and personal expression. In Rome, as well,
the theme of magic as a dangerous temptation was particularly apt: in noother city did curiosity about the natural world so often collide with orthodox
belief.[26]- Walter A. Liedtke, Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., 2017; revised Alexa J.
McCarthy, 2019

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Endnotes

1. See Karla Langedijk, Die Selbstbildnisse der holländischen und flämischen Künstler in derGalleria degli Autoritratti der Uffizien in Florenz (Florence, 1992), 61–63, where Van Laer’s
earlier self-portrait in the Galleria Pallavicini, Rome, and other evidence for his appearance
are also discussed.
2. Mario G. Genesi, “Per una decodifica dei dettagli magico-musicali nella Scena Magica con
Autoritratto di Pieter Bodding van Laer,” Music in Art 30, nos. 1–2 (2005): 89, suggested thatthe smoke was from burning incense.
3. De Gheyn’s drawing is in the Kupferstichkabinet, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin; Bloemaert’s
painting is in the Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore; Fetti’s is in the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza,
Madrid. In the case of De Gheyn, the subject seems of a piece with several scenes ofwitchcraft he drew at about the same time. On this point see Linda C. Hults, The Witch as
Muse: Art, Gender, and Power in Early Modern Europe (Philadelphia, 2005), 152–57.
4. The Kabbalah, along with magic and astrology, was one of the many controversial intereststhat doomed Giordano Bruno (burned at the stake in Rome on 17 February 1600), as
discussed in Karen Silvia de León-Jones, Giordano Bruno and the Kabbalah: Prophets,
Magicians, and Rabbis (Lincoln, NE, 2004). All of Bruno’s writings were placed on the Index
in 1603. Similarly, German theologian Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim was nameda heretic for his De occulta philosophia (1533), in which he argued that through magic one
could come to better understand God and the natural world. In his analysis, Agrippa drew
upon the Hebrew alphabet and Pythagorean numerology, among other sources.
5. The numbers in a column (6?, 4, and 7) could be the beginning of a magic square (in which
the numbers in each column, row, and main diagonal yield the same sum).
6. Kathryn Paulsen, The Complete Book of Magic and Witchcraft (New York, 1980), 149. Whenthe point is at the top it represents the deity.
7. These alternatives are described in Mario G. Genesi, “Per una decodifica dei dettagli magicomusicali nella Scena Magica con Autoritratto di Pieter Bodding van Laer,” Music in Art 30,
nos. 1–2 (2005): 91–95.
8. As suggested in Laurence Wuidar, “Magie démoniaque et allégorie de l’ouïe: Le canonmusical dans les vanités de Breughel, Natali et Van Laer,” Annales d’histoire de l’art etd’archéologie 27 (2005): 106–7, where crabs are also said to be associated with love andfortune because of their reversals and conflicts.
9. For this history, see, among others, H.A.M. Snelders, De geschiedenis van de scheikunde in
Nederland, vol. 1, Van alchemie tot chemie en chemische industrie rond 1900 (Delft, 1993),
11–25; Lawrence M. Principe and Lloyd DeWitt, Transmutations—Alchemy in Art: Selected© 2020 The Leiden CollectionSelf-Portrait with Magic Scene
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Works

from

the

Eddlemanand

FisherCollections

at

the

Chemical

HeritageFoundation (Philadelphia, 2002); and Lawrence M. Principe, The Secrets of Alchemy(Chicago, 2013), especially chapter 5: “The Golden Age: Practicing Chemistry in the Early
Modern Period.”
10. Roeland van Laer, Bentveughels in a Roman Tavern, ca. 1626, oil on canvas, 88.5 x 147.5
cm (Museo di Roma, Rome). For a discussion of this painting, see Thomas Kren, “Chi nonvuol Baccho: Roeland van Laer’s Burlesque Painting about Dutch Artists in Rome,” Simiolus
11 (1980): 63–80; and David A. Levine, Giulio Briganti, and Ekkehard Mai, eds., I
Bamboccianti: Niederländische Malerrebellen im Rom des Barock (Exh. cat. Cologne, WallrafRichartz-Museum; Utrecht, Centraal Museum) (Milan, 1991), 209–11, no. 20.1.
11. Associations between the texts in these two paintings were first made in David A. Levine,
Giulio Briganti, and Ekkehard Mai, eds., I Bamboccianti: Niederländische Malerrebellen im
Rom des Barock (Exh. cat. Cologne, Wallraf-Richartz-Museum; Utrecht, Centraal Museum)(Milan, 1991), 199–201, no. 19.7.
12. David Levine, “Pieter van Laer’s Artists’ Tavern: An Ironic Commentary on Art,”in Holländische Genremalerei im. 17. Jahrhundert: Symposium Berlin 1984, ed. Henning
Bock and Thomas W. Gaehtgens, special issue no. 4, Jahrbuch Preussischer Kulturbesitz(1987): 175–76.
13. A figure or other form in the center of the wall has been rubbed out, perhaps because ofsome obscene aspect, as suggested by Holm Bevers, Aus Rembrandts Zeit: Zeichenkunst in
Hollands Goldenem Jahrhundert (Exh. cat. Berlin, Kupferstichkabinet, Staatliche Museen zu
Berlin) (Berlin, 2011), 95, under no. 66.
14. The figure has been identified in the past as either Pan or Chronos, whose attributes include
satyr’s legs or wings, respectively (though neither bears these traits in combination). Many ofGuaccius’s woodcut illustrations are reproduced in Emile Grillot de Givry, Illustrated
Anthology of Sorcery, Magic and Alchemy (London, 1991). Compare also the devil withwings, horns, and satyr’s legs in Willem van Swanenburgh’s engraving of 1609, A Beardless
Youth and the Devil at an Easel, which is compared with a similar print, of 1550, by D.V.
Coornhert after Maarten van Heemskerck, in Claudia Swan, Art, Science, and Witchcraft in
Early Modern Holland: Jacques de Gheyn II (1565–1629) (Cambridge, 2005), 184–85, fig. 67.
The devil and Death (in the form of a skeleton) appear as a pair in numerous sixteenthcentury prints, such as Death and the Devil Come for the Card Player in Hans Holbein the
Younger’s famous series of woodcuts The Dance of Death (1523–26). The group to the rightin Van Laer’s drawing bears some resemblance to Holbein’s ensemble, especially as seenin the reversed version by the monogrammist GS.
15. See Jennifer Montagu, The Expression of the Passions (New Haven and London, 1994),
chapter 5, on this tradition, mainly in Rome; and Dagmar Hirschfelder, Tronie und Porträt in
der niederländischen Malerei des 17. Jahrhunderts (Berlin, 2008), 321–34. On the theoretical© 2020 The Leiden CollectionSelf-Portrait with Magic Scene
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background, see Franziska Gottwald, Das Tronie: Muster, Studie und Meisterwerk (Berlin andMunich, 2011), chapter 2.
16. Interestingly, Van Laer originally included a raised hand in the left background of Self-Portrait
with Magic Scene, as in Boy Bitten by a Lizard, although such excited gestures are common
in Italian baroque art.
17. Irving Lavin, “Bernini’s Bust of the Medusa: An Awful Pun,” in Docere, delectare, movere:
Affetti, devozione e retorica nel linguaggio artistico del primo barocco romano. Atti delconvegno organizzato dall’Instituto olandese a Roma e dalla Bibliotheca Hertziana (MaxPlanck-Institut) in collaborazione con l’Università cattolica di Nijmegen. Roma, 19–20
gennaio, 1996 (Rome, 1998), 165, fig. 20, relates The Damned Soul to other expressive
heads by Bernini and to the sculptor’s admiration of the ancient Laocoön.
18. The Leiden Collection is grateful to Bert Schepers, senior editor, Centrum Rubenianum,
Antwerp, for drawing our attention to these paintings. At least three compositions are closely
related to Van Laer’s Self-Portrait: Angelo Caroselli, Negromante, ca. 1620–25, oil on canvas,
60 x 65 cm (formerly in Galerie Canesso, Lucano and Paris, now in an unknown location);
Angelo Caroselli, Negromante, ca. 1625, oil on canvas, 44 x 35 cm (Pinacoteca Civica
Francesco Podesti, Ancona) (fig 4); and Pietro Paolini, Negromante, ca. 1630, oil on canvas,
70 x 92 cm (Collezione Cavallini Sgarbi, Ferrara) (fig 5).
Caroselli revisited the themes of witchcraft and magic throughout his career, and his
depictions of these subjects were popular among Roman patrons. The 28 August 1687
Roman inventory of Caterina Chellini’s estate taken upon her death includes a Donna
impaurita (a scared woman) by Caroselli (Getty Provenance Index databases, J. Paul Getty
Trust, Archival Inventory I-942 [Chellini], item 262). A painting by an unidentified artist
described as depicting a “negro mante” appears in the Roman inventory of Cardinal
Francesco Barberini’s (1597–1679) wardrobe, compiled between 10 December 1626 and 15
November 1631 (Getty Provenance Index databases, J. Paul Getty Trust, Archival InventoryI-3715 [Barberini], item 266); see also Marilyn Aronberg Lavin, Seventeenth-Century
Barberini Documents and Inventories of Art (New York, 1975), III, inv. 26–31, 74, no. 266.
Marta Rossetti has suggested that this description could refer to either Caroselli’s Ancona
canvas, or the painting formerly with Galerie Canesso in Lucano and Paris. Marta Rossetti,“L’Arcano Angelo Caroselli,” in L’Incantesimo di Circe: Temi di magia nella pittura da Dosso
Dossi a Salvator Rosa, ed. Stefania Macioce (Rome, 2004), 118; Marta Rossetti, Angelo
Caroselli 1585–1652: Copista, pasticheur, restauratore, conoscitore (Rome, 2015), 178–82,
no. 19; 182–89, no. 20.
19. Caroselli introduced Paolini to themes of witchcraft and alchemy when they worked together
in the 1620s. Marta Rosetti, “L’Arcano Angelo Caroselli,” in L’Incantesimo di Circe: Temi dimagia nella pittura da Dosso Dossi a Salvator Rosa, ed. Stefania Macioce (Rome, 2004),
117–18, cited in Barbara Savina, “Pietro Paolini, Negromante,” in La Collezione Cavallini© 2020 The Leiden CollectionSelf-Portrait with Magic Scene
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Sgarbi Da Niccolò dell’Arca a Gaetano Previati, ed. Pietro di Natale (Exh. cat. Ferrara,
Castello Estense) (Ferrara, 2018), 174, no. 56.
After working in both Rome and Venice, Paolini returned to his native Lucca, where heestablished an academy in ca. 1652. His works figure in Lucchese inventories, including
those of Mansi and Buonvisi. See Patrizia Giusta Maccari, “Documenti,” in Pietro Paolini
pittore lucchese, 1603–1681 (Lucca, 1987), 191–94.
20. Barbara Savina, “Pietro Paolini, Negromante,” in La Collezione Cavallini Sgarbi Da Niccolò
dell’Arca a Gaetano Previati, ed. Pietro di Natale (Exh. cat. Ferrara, Castello Estense)(Ferrara, 2018), 174, no. 56.
21. For these paintings by Caroselli, see note 18.
22. Vittorio Sgarbi, Il Male: Esercizi di Pittura Crudele, 2 vols. (Exh. cat. Turin, Palazzina Di
Caccia Di Stupinigi) (Milan, 2005), 1: 332, no. 92.
23. David Fontana, The Secret Language of Symbols: A Visual Key to Symbols and Their
Meanings (San Francisco, 1994), 62.
24. Marta Rosetti, “L’Arcano Angelo Caroselli,” in L’Incantesimo di Circe: Temi di magia nella
pittura da Dosso Dossi a Salvator Rosa, ed. Stefania Macioce (Rome, 2004), 118; Marta
Rossetti, Angelo Caroselli 1585–1652: Copista, pasticheur, restauratore, conoscitore (Rome,
2015), 107–9. In 1597, King James VI (1566–1625) first published his highly influential
Daemonologie in three parts, discussing magic, sorcery, demonology, and witchcraft. This
text distinguished the male magician from the female witch. The magician’s interest in thedark arts stems from a quest for knowledge, whereas the witch’s motives are vindictive andself-serving. Indeed, depictions of female necromancers warned men against the powerful
wiles of women. Marta Rosetti, “L’Arcano Angelo Caroselli,” in L’Incantesimo di Circe: Temidi magia nella pittura da Dosso Dossi a Salvator Rosa, ed. Stefania Macioce (Rome, 2004),
107–8. Caroselli’s female subjects would have been viewed as complicit, willing participants,
whereas Paolini and Van Laer’s male subjects would have been considered victims who
were not entirely aware of magic’s potential outcomes. Vittorio Sgarbi, Il Male: Esercizi diPittura Crudele, 2 vols. (Exh. cat. Turin, Palazzina Di Caccia Di Stupinigi) (Milan, 2005), 1:
332, no. 92.
25. Charles Zika, The Appearance of Witchcraft: Print and Visual Culture in Sixteenth-Century
Europe (London and New York, 2007), 127.
26. See the case of Giordano Bruno mentioned in note 4 above. Galileo was tried and convictedby the Inquisition in Rome in 1633. See also David Freedberg, The Eye of the Lynx: Galileo,
His Friends, and the Beginnings of Modern Natural History (Chicago and London, 2002), esp.
59–62, on “Cassiano’s drawings and beliefs.”© 2020 The Leiden CollectionSelf-Portrait with Magic Scene
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ProvenancePrince Dragonetti-Torre, Aquila, until 1972.
[Richard L. Feigen & Co., New York, until 2005].
From whom acquired by the present owner.

Exhibition History
Princeton, Princeton University Art Museum, “Dutch and Flemish Paintings from New YorkPrivate Collections,” 12 April–14 June 1987 [lent by Richard L. Feigen].
Cologne, Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, “I Bamboccianti: Niederländische Malerrebellen im Rom
des Barock,” 28 August–17 November 1991; Utrecht, Centraal Museum, 6 December 1991–9
February 1992, no. 19.7 [lent by Richard L. Feigen].
Cremona, Santa Maria della Pietà, “Dipingere la musica: Strumenti in posa nell’arte delCinque e Seicento,” 12 December 2000–18 March 2001, no. I.33; Vienna, Kunsthistorisches
Museum, Palais Harrach, 4 April–1 July 2001, no. I.33 [lent by Richard L. Feigen].
Bartlesville, Oklahoma, The Price Tower Arts Center, “Music’s Power: Great European
Paintings on Musical Themes,” 28 May–July 10, 2002, no. 4 [lent by Richard L. Feigen].
Hartford, Wadsworth Atheneum, on long-term loan, September 2002–December 2003 [lent by
Richard L. Feigen].
London, National Portrait Gallery, “Self-Portrait: Renaissance to Contemporary,” 20 October
2005- 29 January 2006; Sydney Art Gallery of New South Wales, 17 February–14 May 2006,
no. 15 [lent by the present owner].
Greenwich, Bruce Museum, “Alchemy: Magic, Myth, or Science?” 26 September 2009–3
January 2010 [no number, lent by present owner].
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, on loan with the permanent collection, 2006–15 [lentby the present owner].
Paris, Petit Palais, “The Baroque Underworld: Vice and Destitution in Rome,” 24
February–24 May 2015 [lent by the present owner].
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, on loan with the permanent collection, June
2015–May 2016 [lent by the present owner].
Paris, Museé du Louvre, “Masterpieces of The Leiden Collection: The Age of Rembrandt,” 22
February–22 May 2017 [lent by the present owner].
Beijing, National Museum of China, “Rembrandt and His Time: Masterpieces from The
Leiden Collection,” 17 June–3 September 2017 [lent by the present owner].
© 2020 The Leiden CollectionSelf-Portrait with Magic Scene
Page 13 of 15

Shanghai, Long Museum, West Bund, “Rembrandt, Vermeer and Hals in the Dutch Golden
Age: Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection,” 23 September 2017–25 February 2018 [lentby the present owner].
Moscow, The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, “The Age of Rembrandt and Vermeer:
Masterpieces of The Leiden Collection,” 28 March 2018–22 July 2018 [lent by the present
owner].
St. Petersburg, The State Hermitage Museum, “The Age of Rembrandt and Vermeer:
Masterpieces of The Leiden Collection,” 5 September 2018–13 January 2019 [lent by thepresent owner].
Abu Dhabi, Louvre Abu Dhabi, “Rembrandt, Vermeer and the Dutch Golden Age.
Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection and the Musée du Louvre,” 14 February–18 May
2019 [lent by the present owner].

References
Marini, Maurizio. “Caravaggio e il naturalismo internazionale.” In Storia dell’arte italiana:
materiali e problemi Dal medioevo al Novecento. Edited by Giuio Einaudi, 2:415, no. 380. 12
vols. Turin, 1979–83.
Briganti, Giuliano, et al. I Bamboccianti. Rome, 1983, 59, no. 1.48.
Levine, David, Giuliano Briganti, and Ekkehard Mai.

I Bamboccianti: Niederländische

Malerrebellen im Rom des Barock. Exh. cat. Cologne, Wallraf-Richartz-Museum; Utrecht,
Centraal Museum. Milan, 1991, 199–201, no. 19.7.
De Meyere, Jos. Straatrumoer: Rome gezien door Nederlandse schilders in de gouden Eeuw
Pieter van laer en de Bamboccianten. Exh. brochure, Utrecht, Centraal Museum. Utrecht,
1991, no. 19.7.
Gruber, Gerlinde. “Autoritratti a raffigurazioni degli artisti nella pittura di genere.” In Da
Caravaggio a Ceruti. La scena di genere e l’immagine dei pittori nella pittura italiana. Edited
by Francesco Porzio, 442–44. Exh. cat. Brescia, Museo di Santa Giulia. Milan, 1998.
Schama, Simon. “Another Dimension.” New Yorker, 28 October 2002, 90.
Rosetti, Marta. “L’Arcano Angelo Caroselli.” In L’Incatesimo di Circe: Temi di magia nella
pittura Dosso Dossi a Salvator Rosa. Edited by Stefania Macioce, 114, 118. Rome, 2004.
Woodall, Joanna. “Self-Portrait.” In Self-Portrait: Renaissance to Contemporary. Edited by
Anthony Bond and Joanna Woodall, 112–13, no. 15. Exh. cat. London, National Portrait
Gallery; Sydney, Art Gallery of New South Wales, 2005.
Wuidar, Laurence. “Magie démoniaque et allégorie de l’ouïe: le canon musical dans lesvanités de Breughel, Natali et Van Laer.” Annales d’histoire de l’art et d’archéologie 27© 2020 The Leiden CollectionSelf-Portrait with Magic Scene
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Genesi, Mario G. “Per una decodifica dei dettagli magico-musicali nella Scena magica con
autoritratto di Pieter Bodding van Laer.” Music in Art 30, nos. 1–2 (2005): 88–96.
Rebbert, Carolyn Rose. Alchemy: Magic, Myth, or Science? Exh. cat. Greenwich, Bruce
Museum. Greenwich, 2009, 13, no. 12.
Cremonte Pastorello di Cornour, Anna. La Torino dei Bamboccianti: memorie di strada e diPalazzo. Pinerolo, 2010.
Ebert-Schifferer, Sybille. Caravaggio: The Artist and His Work. Los Angeles, 2012, 87, no.
49. Originally published as Caravaggio. Munich, 2009.
Rossetti, Marta. Angelo Caroselli (1585–1652), pittore romano: copista, pasticheur,restauratore, conoscitore. Rome, 2015, 179, 182, 186, 189.
Savina, Barbara. “Pietro Paolini, Negromante.” In Lotto, Artemisia, Guercino: Le Stanze
Segrete di Vittorio Sgarbi. Edited by Pietro di Natale, 122, fig. 2. Exh. cat. Osimo, Palazzo
Campana. Milan, 2016.
McCarthy, Alexa. “Self-Portrait with Magic Scene.” In Masterpieces of The Leiden Collection:
The Age of Rembrandt. Edited by Blaise Ducos and Dominique Surh, 42, no. 11. Exh. cat.
Paris, Musée du Louvre. Paris, 2017.
Yeager-Crasselt, Lara. “Self-Portrait with Magic Scene.” In Rembrandt and His Time:
Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection. Edited by Lara Yeager-Crasselt, 148; 188, no. 64.
Translated by Li Ying. Exh. cat. Beijing, National Museum of China. Beijing, 2017.
Long Museum, West Bund. Rembrandt, Vermeer and Hals in the Dutch Golden Age:
Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection. Exh. cat. Shanghai, Long Museum, West Bund.
Shanghai, 2017, 156–57.
Yeager-Crasselt, Lara. “Self-Portrait with Magic Scene.” In The Age of Rembrandt andVermeer: Masterpieces of The Leiden Collection. Edited by Polina Lyubimova, 100–1; 235,
no. 17. Translated by Daria Babich and Daria Kuzina. Exh. cat. Moscow, The Pushkin State
Museum of Fine Arts; St. Petersburg, The State Hermitage Museum. Moscow, 2018.
Savina, Barbara. “Petro Paolini, Negromante.” In La Collezione Cavallini Sgarbi Da Niccolò
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no. 56. Exh. cat. Ferrara, Castello Estense. Ferrara, 2018.
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Dhabi, Louvre Abu Dhabi. London, 2019, 176–77, no. 91. [Exhibition catalogue also publishedin French and Arabic.]
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Self-Portrait with Magic Scene
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Technical Summary
The support, a single piece of coarse, plain-weave fabric with tacking margins almost entirely
removed, has been lined. The threads are irregular in size and contain numerous slubs. Cuspingalong all four edges indicates the original dimensions have been retained. A paper label has been
adhered to the stretcher but there are no wax collection seals, import stamps, stencils or
inscriptions along the lining or stretcher reverse.
A dark red-brown preparatory layer has been applied and a narrow band remains exposed along
the length of the left vertical edge. The paint has been applied quite freely; many details were
worked wet into wet with loose, broad brushstrokes. Some details, particularly the highlights in theobjects on the table, were added later with a drier brush. Slight impasto was used to draw
attention to the highlights along the skull and the devil’s hands. Thin glazes of black paint havebeen applied along the music score.
No underdrawing is readily apparent in infrared images captured at 900–1700 nanometers,
though dark paint can obscure carbon-containing underdrawings.
The painting has not undergone conservation treatment since its acquisition in 2005 and remains
in a good state of preservation.[1]Technical Summary Endnotes

1. Entry based on a 2012 examination report by Sophie Scully, paintings conservation
department intern, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

© 2020 The Leiden Collection