Details
Adriaen van Ostade (1610-1685)

The Breakfast (B.50)

etched copper plate, signed and inscribed in reverse 'Av. ostade/Securae reddamus tempora mensae/venit post multos una serena dies./Tibull.' and with inscription '51' (crossed out for '52') on the reverse; twelfth (final) state, 754 gr.
222 x 266 mm.

Lot Essay

A drawing, in the same sense and probably incised, formerly in the A. Sträter Collection, is presently unlocated (Schnackenburg, op.cit., no. 50). A replica of Ostade's picture of the same composition, also in the same sense, bearing a signature and indistinct date, formerly in the Collection of Dr. A. Wiederkehr, Zurich, was sold in Paris, 17 June 1904, lot 35 (photograph in the Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie, The Hague). As with B.49 (see the previous lot in this sale), Slatkes (Pelletier a.o., op.cit., p. 251) suggests that Ostade based this etching on his picture, noting that this is an even more independent graphic work. The Latin text that appears in the fifth state below the subject was quoted from the Roman poet Tibullus (Elegies, III, Elegy VI, 31-2), and may be translated as follows: 'We spend time for an untroubled table after a lengthy wait, a fair day comes'. Both Schnackenburg and Slatkes date this second largest of the artist's plates to circa 1647-52.

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