Balaam and the Ass (1583): Art, History and Details

Balaam and the Ass (1583) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Hans Bol (Flemish, 1534–1593).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

While this small miniature, made with watercolor on parchment, depicts a scene from the Old Testament in the left foreground, its primary subject is the expansive rural scene, landscape, and distant hillside city beyond. Hans Bol combined realistic city views, based on his onsite observation, with imaginary scenes and narratives, appealing to his late-16th-century urban Netherlandish audience. The story of the Balaam and the Ass was associated with greed in the period. The miniature was likely paired with other scenes highlighting contemporary moral issues to be displayed together in a domestic setting.

Object facts

• Title: Balaam and the Ass
• Date: 1583
• Creator attribution: Hans Bol (Flemish, 1534–1593)
• Culture: Netherlands, 16th century
• Type: Drawing
• Technique: Gouache heightened with gold on vellum laid down on panel
• Dimensions: Sheet: 13.7 x 19.6 cm (5 3/8 x 7 11/16 in.)
• Collection: DR - Flemish
• Department: Drawings
• Accession number: 2022.3

A detail from the museum

This work is mounted on panel, suggesting that it was once inlaid into a piece of furniture or wainscotting in a wealthy 16th-century home.

Collection credit

John L. Severance Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Hulst, Roger Adolf d'. Dessins du XVe au XVIIIe siècle: dans les collections privées de Belgique. Bruxelles: Société générale de banque, 1983.
• Peters, Emily J., Laura Ritter, William Griswold, Klaus Albrecht Schröder, and Koenraad Jonckheere. Tales of the City: Drawing in the Netherlands from Bosch to Bruegel. Cleveland, OH : Cleveland Museum of Art, 2022.
• Sotheby's (Firm). Master Works on Paper from Five Centuries. 2022.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.