The Threatened Swan
Also titled De bedreigde zwaan
Jan Asselijn (Dieppe, 1610–1652)
c. 1650
- Medium
- canvas, oil paint (paint)
- Classification
- painting
- Dimensions
- height 144 cm x width 171 cm
- Museum
- Rijksmuseum
- Rights
- Public Domain Mark, as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Teens profiles and older: its subject is for older viewers (war, death, the Passion, drink or the like). How works are placed
About this work
A swan fiercely defends its nest against a dog. In later centuries this scuffle was interpreted as a political allegory: the white swan was thought to symbolize the Dutch statesman Johan de Witt (assassinated in 1672) protecting the country from its enemies. This was the meaning attached to the painting when it became the very first acquisition to enter the Nationale Kunstgalerij (the forerunner of the Rijksmuseum) in 1800.
