The Bird Nester

Although David Vinckboons made only three prints himself, his designs were the basis for more prints than any other Netherlandish artist in the early seventeen century. Many of the prints illustrate proverbs or scenes from contemporary life, often with satirical overtones.


The bird nester was a subject first made popular by Pieter Bruegel the Elder. The proverb, has been translated as "he who knows where it is has the knowledge, but he who robs it has the nest." Vinckboons treated the theme at least three times. The present work is after a drawing by him in reverse in Stuttgart, Graphische Sammlung der Staatsgalerie. A young man has climbed a tree and is in the process of stealing young birds from the nest. Two men accompanying him are looking up watching him, unaware that a woman is stealing money from the purse of the man at the left. Birds and hunting birds had erotic connotations in Dutch art of this period and the woman’s actions not only reinforce the focus on theft, but also the sexual content. Roughly translated the third and fourth lines of the inscription read: "Jessie looks at the nest eagerly; but what she really seeks is a bird in Johnny’s nest."