Boschian elephant-monster.

Drawing, pen and brown ink, traces of black chalk, 15,2 x 10,7 cm, laid paper, unsigned (some brown stains, corners trimmed).

The draughtsman of this Boschian "drôlerie" closely follows the woodcuts designed by François Deprez, illustrating Rabelais', "Les Songes drôlatiques de Pantagruel", published in Paris (1565) by Richard Breton, twelve years after Rabelais' death. More in particular woodcut no. 8 in the book, which is oriented in the same way as the present drawing. With four lines of French text in the same brown ink, by the same hand: "Pour moy Je suis videz d'une façon, nouvelle. Quand voulez vous dire je suis homme daffaire". The published editions by Breton only included the woodcuts, without the text. Annotated woodcuts only appeared in the later 1823 edition. The lines are probably a free addition by the artist.
Ref. R. Brun, Le livre français illustré de la Renaissance, Paris 1969, pp. 60-61.- L. Silver, Second Bosch. Family Resemblance and the Marketing of Art, in: Nederlands Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek 50 (1999), pp. 30-56. - D. Van Heesch, Hieronymus Bosch, the Antwerp Sketchbook, and the transfer of Images from Pen to Print, in: Master Drawings 57 (2019), pp. 291-314.