335-French-Flemish School circa 1650

335-French-Flemish School circa 1650
The argument
Web
103 x 141 cm
Signature trace at the bottom left JAN VAN K...
Old restorations
Frameless
The stage is located on the market square of a Flemish city, with its stalls in the background and the cathedral on the right. In the centre, two shrews are fighting with fists and keys, perhaps two shopkeepers fighting over a market square. On the ground, their baskets let some fruit escape and two boys are also banging each other. On the right, a beggar is wearing a leg-butt.

This extraordinary painting is part of the current of the painters of the reality of the seventeenth century. One thinks of Georges de la Tour's "Rixe d'aveugles" from the Getty Museum in Los Angeles, a subject close to our own, showing crippled beggars gutting each other violently, or in minor to the popular scenes from the brothers Le Nain, Lagneau, Callot, Michelin to Goya and Ceruti. On the borderline of caricature, our painting can also be stylistically related to the paintings of Jan van de Venne (e.g. children).