Shrove Tuesday,

1616–41

Nocturnes presented peculiar challenges to printmakers in the seventeenth century. Besides the difficulties of managing distinct light sources
and the paradox of depicting what was meant to be shrouded in shadow, printmakers had to develop methods for rendering darkness in a purely linear medium. Goudt became adept at engraving dark scenes with dramatic gradations of light using only dense grids of hatched lines. His technique influenced printmakers such as Van de Velde and, later, Rembrandt. Although similar in format and style, these two prints’ subjects are completely different. Goudt depicted a story from Ovid’s first-century Metamorphoses in which the goddess Ceres stops for water while searching for her abducted daughter, Proserpina, and is mocked by a child for her thirst. She rewards his insolence by transforming him into a lizard. Van de Velde illustrated a contemporary street scene—the nighttime celebration of Vastenavond, or Shrove Tuesday, the festival preceding Lent.