# La Pendaison (The Hanging), plate 11 from Les Miseres et les Mal-Heures de la Guerre > Jacques Callot - 1633 > Canonical HTML: https://iconotheca.com/artworks/jacques-callot/callot-miseries-of-war-met/ > Published by Servola Systems GmbH. Last verified: 2026-09-14 ## Tombstone - **Artist:** Jacques Callot - **Date:** 1633 - **Medium:** Etching, second state of three (Lieure 1349); the Museum's own catalogue record for this impression is not fully decided between the first and second state - **Dimensions:** Sheet: 7.4 x 18.7 cm (2 15/16 x 7 3/8 in.), trimmed - **Object type:** Print - **Period:** French, 17th century (Baroque, Lorraine and Paris) - **Current location:** Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Department of Drawings and Prints - **Attribution:** accepted ## Summary This is the Metropolitan Museum of Art's impression of La Pendaison, The Hanging, plate 11 of Jacques Callot's eighteen plate Les Miseres et les Mal-Heures de la Guerre of 1633, etched in the year French royal troops occupied Callot's native Nancy and published in Paris by his childhood friend Israel Henriet under a privilege from the same crown. It came to the Museum in the Bequest of Edwin De T. Bechtel, 1957, a New York lawyer who wrote his own book on Callot; a second Bechtel-bequest impression of the identical plate, and a third, wholly unrelated Met impression bought in 1922, are both named here and kept firmly apart from this one.The plate shows soldiers hanged from a tree by their own army for the pillage the series' earlier plates had just shown them committing. Scholars remain divided on whether that makes the series an early anti-war statement or an image that quietly endorses the very military authority that had occupied the artist's home duchy; this record gives both readings rather than choosing between them. The Museum's own catalogue leaves this sheet's exact state undecided between first and second, most likely because trimming has cut close to the verse text that would settle the question, an honest gap this record records rather than resolves.What is documented without dispute is the object's identity: accession 57.650.404, item 10, Lieure 1349, Meaume 574, credited to Bechtel's 1957 bequest, and distinct from every other impression of the same plate named in this file. ## Provenance Every link carries a grade. `documented` means a cited source supports it, `disputed` means the identification is argued but not established, `unknown` means we have no owner for that span and have not bridged it. - **1633-1635** Published by Israel Henriet, Paris, under royal privilege; plate etched by Jacques Callot `[documented]` (publication) Common to every impression of this plate, not specific to the Bechtel sheet. Israel Henriet was Callot's Paris publisher and a childhood friend from Nancy. - **1635-1661** Israel Henriet, and after his death his successors, continuing to print from the inherited plates `[documented]` (continued publication) General publication history of the plate itself, common to all impressions, not a statement about this specific sheet's printing date. - **1661-1957** Unknown `[unknown]` (gap) No owner, dealer or sale is documented for this specific impression across roughly three centuries. Its state (second, on present evidence) is consistent with, but does not prove, an early printing. - **-1957** Edwin De T. Bechtel, New York `[documented]` (collection) Bechtel was a New York lawyer and Callot collector and scholar who published Jacques Callot (Braziller, New York, 1955). How or when he acquired this impression is not stated in the sources consulted. - **1957-present** Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York `[documented]` (bequest) Accessioned as 57.650.404, item 10, following Bechtel's death on 4 July 1957. Credit line: Bequest of Edwin De T. Bechtel, 1957. ## Open questions - Is this impression's trimming responsible for the Museum's own uncertainty over whether it is a first or second state, by removing or cropping the distinguishing verse text? Not established in the sources consulted. - Where and from whom did Edwin De T. Bechtel acquire his Callot material, and what did he pay? No dealer, sale or price for this impression or its companion has been located. - Why does La Pendaison fall at item 10 in one Bechtel-bequest album (57.650.404) and item 11 in another (57.650.417)? The one-item offset is unexplained in the Museum's public data. - Does a documented fourth state of this specific plate exist, distinct from the fourth state recorded for plate 18 of the same series? Not confirmed for plate 11 in the sources consulted. - What happened to this print, or to the Henriet stock of Miseries plates generally, between Callot's death in 1635 and Bechtel's twentieth century ownership? No chain of custody was located. - Has any technical examination (paper analysis, plate wear comparison) been carried out on either Bechtel impression to confirm it as an impression printed within or close to Callot's lifetime rather than a later pull from the same unaltered plate? None was located during this research. ## Sources - [1] Metropolitan Museum of Art, Open Access Collection API, object 420826 (accession 57.650.404(10), La Pendaison/La Pendasion, plate 11, Bequest of Edwin De T. Bechtel, 1957). - [2] Metropolitan Museum of Art, Open Access Collection API, object 416025 (accession 57.650.417(11), a second Bechtel-bequest impression of the same plate). - [3] Metropolitan Museum of Art, Open Access Collection API, object 420819 (accession 22.68.14, Rogers Fund, 1922, an unrelated impression of the same plate). - [4] Musee du Louvre, collections online, Les Grandes miseres de la Guerre: La Pendaison (Lieure 1349), with state, inscription and Rothschild provenance. - [5] Princeton University Art Museum, The Hanging, from the series Les Grandes Miseres de la Guerre (Lieure 1349, Bequest of Junius S. Morgan). - [6] Annex Galleries Fine Prints, The Hanging, pl. 11, The Miseries and Misfortunes of War (state II/III, inscription transcription). - [7] Wikipedia, Les Grandes Miseres de la guerre. Tertiary source, used for the eighteen plate title list and general series context; flagged for replacement with a published catalogue raisonne entry. - [8] New York Botanical Garden, finding guide to the Edwin DeTurck Bechtel Papers. - [9] Social Networks and Archival Context (SNAC), biographical record for Bechtel, Edwin DeTurck, 1880-1957. - [10] AbeBooks listing for Bechtel, Edwin De T., Jacques Callot (Braziller, New York, 1955), confirming the 1955 publication, page and plate count and limited printing. - [11] Google Books record, Jacques Callot, New York: Braziller (1955), Edwin De Turck Bechtel. - [12] Online Archive of California, finding aid for Callot (Jacques) Etchings, ca. 1615-1635, with biographical note on Callot's technique, output and on Israel Henriet. - [13] Wikidata, Israel Henriet (Q3155663), biographical dates and occupations. - [14] Encyclopedia.com, Jacques Callot, biographical entry covering training, the Medici court and the 1633 refusal of the Nancy commission. - [15] Catholic Encyclopedia (New Advent), Jacques Callot, for the verbatim quotation on refusing to engrave the fall of Nancy. Tertiary, early twentieth century source; flagged for replacement with a modern scholarly biography. - [16] Wikimedia Commons, File:Les miseres et les malheurs de la guerre - 11 - La pendaison.png, imageinfo/extmetadata confirming public domain licensing and plate identification. - [17] Wikimedia Commons, File:Les Grandes miseres de la guerre, La Pendaison...GDUT1283.jpg (Petit Palais/Paris Musees), imageinfo/extmetadata confirming CC0 licensing and giving the Meaume 574 cross-reference. - [18] Wikimedia Commons, File:Plate 7- A town being sacked...MET DP833463.jpg, imageinfo/extmetadata confirming CC0 licensing and identifying the file as plate 7, not plate 11. - [19] University of Michigan, Bulletin of the University of Michigan Museum of Art, Just Violence: Jacques Callot's Grandes Miseres et Malheurs de la Guerre. Summary of the ambivalence reading of the series and its scholarly literature (Wolfthal, Russell); accessed via search summary after direct fetch was blocked, flagged for replacement with the primary text. --- Images on this record are public domain or CC0 and are hosted by us. No image on this site is generated or simulated. If you quote this record, quote the provenance grades with it.