Interior of an inn with villagers playing music

This mature painting by Cornelis Dusart, one of the most talented pupils of Adriaen van Ostade, reflects the enduring influence of his master while also demonstrating the artist’s familiarity with the peasant interior scenes of Jan Steen. The general mise-en-scène is taken from the former, but the disposition of figures around the table recalls the works of the latter. The painting initially reads as a simple scene of peasants making merry, but the addition of music-making revellers implies an underlying note of seduction.

Here, Dusart’s choice of musical instruments is particularly instructive. The recorder or flute played by the central standing man carried phallic associations (another hangs on the wall beside him), while the other musician’s violin denoted the female sex. It may be that, by including these two musicians alongside a buxom young barmaid dragging an intoxicated man from his bench (despite his evident incapacity through drink), Dusart intended to illustrate the popular Dutch saying ‘het fluitje en de veêl’. Musical instruments were also metaphors of transience due to the brevity of sound, an association equally appropriate to the fleeting nature of carnal pleasures.