The Flute Player (after Georges Lallemand)

Signatures and inscriptions on Ludolph Büsinck’s works clearly attest to his collaboration with the French artist Georges Lallemand, who was Nicolas Poussin’s teacher. Büsinck, a German painter and printer, is credited with stimulating interest in chiaroscuro woodcuts in early seventeenth-century France. While living in Paris from 1623 to 1630, he produced works in this technique almost exclusively, usually after drawings by Lallemand. The formal importance of the very elaborate, scrolling inscriptions in The Flute Player, prominently placed at the upper left, reflect the care that those involved took to claim credit for and guard their work.