El tema del Pedlar Robbed by Apes fue muy popular en los Países Bajos y se difundió en el grabado a partir de un dibujo de Peter Brueghel (véanse FICHAS nº 198 y 202: https://juliomontanes.synology.me/bases/defecantes/?-table=defecantes&-action=browse&-cursor=197 https://juliomontanes.synology.me/bases/defecantes/?-table=defecantes&-action=browse&-cursor=201). Sin embargo fue conocido también en otros lugares. El viajero ingés Thomas Coryate nos informa de su existencia en un mural de una posada de Lyon en 1608 [1] y este grabado, aunque inspirado en modelos flamencos, se imprimió en Inglaterra (Are to be sold by Robert Pricke in White Cross street near Cripplegate Church RP excud) y va acompañado de unos versos en inglés:

"In a country wheare Apes great Plenty bee
A Pedler was a traveling with his ware
You need not long looke which is hee
Hee lyes along 4 his gatt [i.e. bottom] is bare.

And as hee slept the Apes gott to his pack
They make fine work among his toyes & glasses
They wonder at the sight of every knack
Which he had theare to please the co[u]ntry lasses.

One powers [pours] out the mony from his purs
Another Royster [roisterer] pisses in his shooes,
Another in his capp doth skitt that's worse
Yea each doe strive who should him most abuse.

One blowes in's Nock supposing of him dead
While sum doe hange his trinkets in the tree,
Another Ape is looking of his head
Another got a glase his face to see".

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[1] Thomas Coryate, Coryats Crudities, Londres, 1611, p. 66.

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REFERENCIAS:

JANSON, Horst W., Apes and Ape Lore in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, Warburg Institute, Londres, 1952 (Kraus Reprint 1976), p. 224.
FRIEDMAN, John B., "The Peddler-Robbed-by-Apes Topos: Parchment to Print and Back Again", The Journal of the Early Book Society for the Study of Manuscripts and Printing History, Vol. 11, (2008), pp. 87-120.

En internet (British Museum): http://www.bpi1700.org.uk/research/printOfTheMonth/januaryfebruary2009.html#fnLink01