Bernet Kempers 1973b
“De speler met de ronde bus” (A.J. Bernet Kempers) 1973
[in: Oud Holland, vol. LXXXVII (1973), pp. 240-242]
[Not mentioned in Gibson 1983]
Bernet Kempers refers to his article in Volkskunde (see Bernet Kempers 1973a) and signals once more that the character in sixteenth-century iconography in which Renger wants to recognize a pedlar, is not a pedlar but an oblieman. This professional seller of waffles often incited his clients to play dice, play cards or play some sort of roulette. Because by doing so he seduced his clients to gambling games, he became an allegorical figure referring to debauchery in art and literature.
Bernet Kempers thinks it is better to keep Bosch’s Pedlar tondo (Rotterdam) totally apart from the discussion about the oblieman because the protagonist of Bosch’s tondo only shares some general characteristics of shabbiness with the sellers of waffles in the iconographic sources.
[explicit]
