_W. van de Velde_ (Dutch: 1633-1707). _See 149._
Incidentally a good study in the "philosophy of clothes." The
painter hits off with much humour the essential difference between
those who regard man as "by nature a naked animal"--seen in the
naked bathers--and those who regard him as emphatically "a clothed
animal"--seen in the prim old gentleman who gets himself carried on a
man's back. Intermediate between these two classes are those who use
clothes as a convenience, but are not entirely subject to them--such,
for instance, is the comfortable old fellow smoking his pipe and wading
home, not without obvious contempt for the old gentleman riding, as
aforesaid, in ignominious slavery to his "Sunday best." Dated 1661;
bought by Sir Robert Peel from the collection of the Duc de Berri.