A tavern interior with a game of cards and brawlers

Saftleven executed the present painting in 1633, just after he left Rotterdam to settle in Antwerp. The influence of his contemporary Adriaen Brouwer is evident in the choice of subject and bright colouring and it has been suggested that Saftleven might have borrowed the motive of the boor sleeping in the foreground from Brouwer's Interior of an inn of circa 1630 in the Museum Boijmans- van Beuningen, Rotterdam. Schulz proposes Saftleven used Ostade's drawing of a sleeping man in the George Abrams collection in Boston (op. cit., no. 58, fig. 59).

During his Antwerp sojourn Cornelis Saftleven gained considerable fame as an artist. Sir Peter Paul Rubens collaborated with him on at least four occasions and owned as many as eight pictures by the Dutch artist.