Details
Adriaen van Ostade (1610-1685)

Saying Grace (B.34)

etched copper plate, 1653, signed and dated in reverse 'Av.Ostade/1653', with inscriptions '19/O/61' on the reverse; sixth (final) state, hammer and punch marks on the reverse for corrections around the man's head, back and hands and the smaller child's hands, and to the left of the child standing, 278 gr.
158 x 133 mm.

Lot Essay

The preliminary study for this, in the same sense and incised, is in the British Museum, London (Schnackenburg, op.cit., no. 67). Related studies of a man praying and of hands, in the same sense as the plate, are in the Kunsthalle, Hamburg (Schnackenburg, op.cit., no. 69, verso). Also related are a study of the bust of an old peasant woman in the Pierpont Morgan Library, New York, in the same sense (Schnackenburg, op.cit., no.116), and a study of a mother and child in the Rijksprentenkabinet, Amsterdam, also in the same sense (unknown to Schnackenburg, L.J. Slatkes, Preparatory Drawings for Prints by Adriaen van Ostade, Drawings Defined, New York, 1987, pp. 237-8, fig. 18). Slatkes has pointed out that Ostade here continues a tradition of depicting families praying before their meal, which was also taken up by Jan Steen and others.

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