Article cover
Essay

How to Succeed in Marketing Something Repulsive: A Recently Discovered Drawing of a Yogi by Willem Schellinks (1623– 1678)

Corinna Forberg and Pauline Lunsingh Scheurleer

Published online:

01 Oct 2018

Abstract

Abstract

In seventeenth-century Dutch paintings, ascetics are a rare and remarkable subject, even more so when they are Hindu ascetics. The drawing of a yogi created by Rembrandt’s contemporary Willem Schellinks (1623– 1678) is unique for this reason. This article investigates the various possible sources of Schellinks’ drawing – an eyewitness report, the many travel accounts on South Asia, Indian miniatures, or the like – and discusses its place between the European tradition of exoticism and the iconography of saints, as well as its position in Schellinks’ own oeuvre. Far from resorting to exotic stereotypes, Schellinks enlarged the canon of Dutch painting by combining observed foreign objects with established exotic motifs.

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