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Overview
The Dutch printmaker Marcus de Bye (also de Bije/ de Bie) is little-known in relation to his talent and prolificness. He was born in The Hague in 1639 and died after 1688. He became a pupil of Jacob van der Does in 1658. Better known as an engraver and etcher than a painter, he engraved several series of animal studies after the famous but short-lived painter Paulus Potter and also produced a number of original engravings.
This etching is Plate 5 in a series of 16 simply and obviously known as Sheep. Unlike other prints by De Bye in the collection, this series was not derived as far as we know from other artists like Potter or Marcus Gheeraerts the Elder, but was entirely by him. Depicted here are two grazing sheep in a landscape, the right one standing in the right foreground, the left one recumbent in the left background. There are three other sheep in the right background some distance away, as well as several shepherds with their animals in the far background. The meadow is clearly a mine of activity.
Te Papa currently has three prints in the series, plates 5, 7 and 16. All of them were presented to the Colonial Museum by Bishop Ditlev Monrad in 1869.
See: British Museum Collection online, https://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=3063587&partId=1&search Text=De+Bye+sheep+plate+5&page=1
Dr Mark Stocker Curator, Historical International Art April 2019