Lot Essay
The present lot dates to Matthijs Maris' Antwerp period (1855-1858) and was made after a detailed pen drawing De thuiskomst van een dronken man (the return of the drunkard) by the same hand now in the collection of the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (inv.no. RP-T-1978-13). In 1855 Mattrijs joined his brother Jacob in Antwerp, with whom he shared a workshop and a house. For a short period their friend and fellow student Laurens Alma-Tadema (1863-1912) came to live with them. They lived on Matthijs's grant and made small paintings, based on 17th-century Dutch genre pictures, for the American market.
Art-historian Haverkorn van Rijsewijk mentions in his article 'Onze Kunst that when Matthijs used the above mentioned drawing as inspiration for the painting, he softened it greatly. The barking dog dissapeared, and the feisty rooster turned into a calm hen. Furthermore, the woman all dressed in black as an empathetic look on her face, as do the two daughters. The character is a changed man when compared to the drawing, he is no longer a drunkard, but rather a man returning home feeling tipsy. Another sketch of a detail is in the The Burrell Collection, Glasgow ('The Drunkard' (dated circa 1856-57), pen, wash, watercolour and black chalk on paper, 171 x 127 mm., inv.no. 35/33B).
Maris took the present theme of the drunkard from a play. The story tells the tale of a drunkard coming home and finding his mother seriously ill. In a letter to W.J.G. van Meurs, dated 1907, Maris explained that stylistically he was influenced by illustrations from a book by the German artist Ludwig Richter (1803-1884). Richter was very popular at that time, and in many ways the most typical German illustrator of the middle of the 19th century. Matthijs later remembered showing this work (or a similar piece) to his teacher at the Academy in Antwerp, the history painter Nicaise de Keyser (1813-1887): '(he) told me they were trivial. No doubt they were, but it showed my hatred to the sickening academical learning of perfection in the Romans and the Greeks.' (see: exh.cat. Tokyo, The Seibu Museum of Art, Impressionists and Post-Impressionist from the Netherlands, 1980, no. 39).
The first owner of the present lot was the English painter Felix Moscheles (1833-1917) who had been Matthijs' fellow student in Antwerp and who contacted Matthijs again later in London. Moscheles received the present painting as a gift.
Art-historian Haverkorn van Rijsewijk mentions in his article 'Onze Kunst that when Matthijs used the above mentioned drawing as inspiration for the painting, he softened it greatly. The barking dog dissapeared, and the feisty rooster turned into a calm hen. Furthermore, the woman all dressed in black as an empathetic look on her face, as do the two daughters. The character is a changed man when compared to the drawing, he is no longer a drunkard, but rather a man returning home feeling tipsy. Another sketch of a detail is in the The Burrell Collection, Glasgow ('The Drunkard' (dated circa 1856-57), pen, wash, watercolour and black chalk on paper, 171 x 127 mm., inv.no. 35/33B).
Maris took the present theme of the drunkard from a play. The story tells the tale of a drunkard coming home and finding his mother seriously ill. In a letter to W.J.G. van Meurs, dated 1907, Maris explained that stylistically he was influenced by illustrations from a book by the German artist Ludwig Richter (1803-1884). Richter was very popular at that time, and in many ways the most typical German illustrator of the middle of the 19th century. Matthijs later remembered showing this work (or a similar piece) to his teacher at the Academy in Antwerp, the history painter Nicaise de Keyser (1813-1887): '(he) told me they were trivial. No doubt they were, but it showed my hatred to the sickening academical learning of perfection in the Romans and the Greeks.' (see: exh.cat. Tokyo, The Seibu Museum of Art, Impressionists and Post-Impressionist from the Netherlands, 1980, no. 39).
The first owner of the present lot was the English painter Felix Moscheles (1833-1917) who had been Matthijs' fellow student in Antwerp and who contacted Matthijs again later in London. Moscheles received the present painting as a gift.