Slatkes (Pelletier a.o., op.cit., pp. 132-3) points out that this is comparable to a picture in the same sense, of which the present whereabouts are unknown, and of which the signature is still to be defined as that of Adriaen or his brother Isack. Indeed, Isack did take up the subject of stables in his pictures. Clifford S. Ackley, Printmaking in the Age of Rembrandt, exhibition catalogue, Boston, 1981, p. 156, observed that this print 'was a radical conception for its time in that the principal subject is the interior itself - its space, light and texture. The anonymous figure of a peasant woman bends over in a far corner while chickens roost or scratch in the foreground, but they are subordinate to the mood of the interior as a whole; the latticed pattern of light and shadow and the shaggy textures of hay and thatch'. Though no preliminary study for this etching is known, Ostade's drawn oeuvre includes many similar barn interiors. Other etchings dated 1647 are B.8 and B.46 (see lots 6 and 44 in this sale).