Lot Essay
One of the foremost genre painters in Holland in the 17th Century, Adriaen van Ostade is recorded as having started his career as a pupil of Frans Hals in Haarlem, concurrently with Adriaen Brouwer. It was from those two artists, and particularly Brouwer, that he developed his themes of parties of smoking, drinking, dancing and amorous peasants in their village surroundings, arranged with their strong chiaroscuro light contrasts, and typically, the use of beams and rafters to emphasize spatial recession. He continued to work in Haarlem throughout his life, becoming dean of the Guild of St. Luke in 1662.
The full-scale drawing for this work is in the collection of the Musée Léon Bonnat, Bayonne, datable to 1636-8 (B. Schnackenburg, Adriaen Van Ostade · Isack Van Ostade Zeichnungen und Aquarelle, Hamburg, 1981, no. 16, ill.).
The full-scale drawing for this work is in the collection of the Musée Léon Bonnat, Bayonne, datable to 1636-8 (B. Schnackenburg, Adriaen Van Ostade · Isack Van Ostade Zeichnungen und Aquarelle, Hamburg, 1981, no. 16, ill.).