Peasants brawling in a tavern

Jan Miense Molenaer was part of an artistic family from Haarlem: his brother Bartholomeus and nephew Klaes, with whom he sometimes collaborated, were also artists. In 1636 he married the genre painter Judith Leyster and the couple moved to Amsterdam that same year. Molenaer is often considered to be the point of transition between the Brueghels and the younger artist Jan Steen, also admired for his lively genre scenes.

From the 1640's he painted almost exclusively low-life genre scenes that reveal a debt to Adriaen van Ostade in their crowded compositions and monochromatic palette, of which the present work is an example.