Adriaen Jansz. van Ostade

(Haarlem 1610–1685)
A tavern interior with peasants playing trictrac,
oil on panel, tondo, diameter 40 cm, framed
Provenance:
with Galerie Kleinberger, Paris;
Achilles von Wolf (1834–1891), Prague;
sale, Dorotheum, Vienna, 10 June 1958, lot 93;
Private collection, Northern Germany;
sale, Dorotheum, Vienna, 2 October 2002, lot 166;
Private collection, Vienna

Literature:
B. Schnackenburg, Die Anfänge des Bauerninterieurs bei Adriaen und Isaak van Ostade, in: Oud Holland, Vol. 85, No. 1 (1970), pp. 159, 162, illustrated;
B. Schnackenburg, Adriaen van Ostade, Isack van Ostade: Zeichnungen und Aquarelle, Gesamtdarstellung mit Werkkatalogen, vol. I, Hamburg 1981, pp. 37, 43, 47, 79, 258

The present painting is listed in the RKD database under no. 114908. The painting relates to a drawing attributed to Adriaen van Ostade that was formerly with Walter von Wenz, Eindhoven (see Schnackenburg 1981, p. 79, no. 2).

At the time of the Dorotheum 2002 sale, both Hiltraud Doll and Fred Meijer accepted the present painting as an autograph work by Adriaen van Ostade. Doll suggested a date of execution to around 1632/33.

This lively and well preserved panel is a characteristic example of Van Ostade’s early period which was devoted to the depiction of the daily life of peasants. The setting is often a barn which here has become a makeshift venue for a spontaneous game of trictrac on top of an upturned barrel. Much of the present tondo’s appeal originates from the sense of atmosphere that helps unify the composition, not least due to the way Van Ostade has sharply illuminated the central group, as well as the positioning of the shadowed repoussoir figure smoking in the foreground. The light source from the left, throws into stark relief the somewhat caricatured expressions of the squat, crude figures with their coarse, hooked noses and wild, intense looks. With his depiction of peasant life, Van Ostade was in fact working in a tradition that can be traced back to the paintings of Pieter Brueghel the Elder (1525/30–1569). Such paintings were intended to entertain and educate the cultivated burghers, who were amused by the boorish behaviour of what they saw as the backward and comical peasant class.