The signed preliminary drawing, in the same sense and incised, is in the Fondation Custodia, Institut Néerlandais, Paris (Schnackenburg, op.cit, no. 71), and a comparable drawing, in reverse, signed and dated 1656, is in the Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin (Schnackenburg, op.cit., no. 82). Schnackenburg dates this plate to circa 1653-after 1660, while Slatkes dates it to circa 1654. Slatkes (Pelletier a.o., op.cit., p. 240) again compares this composition and theme to the prints by Beham and Van der Borcht mentioned in the note of lot 42 of this sale. Pieter Breughel the Elder's influence is also obvious here. In this etching Ostade combines many of the themes that he treated separately in other works: peasants conversing, music making, dancing, drinking, children playing, and a charlatan showing his wares in the background, all placed in an unusually wide space. The delicate details of the background that already printed indistinctly in the early states are still clearly visible in what is certainly one of the artist's most characteristic and impressive etchings.