Peasants in an Interior

Support The copper plate is approx. 0.2-0.3 cm thick. Wooden strips at the bottom and on the right (approx. 0.9 cm) were added at a later date as part of a lattice attached to the reverse.
Preparatory layers The single, extremely thin, brownish-grey ground extends up the edges of the support. It contains large white, black and red pigment particles.
Underdrawing No underdrawing could be detected with the naked eye or infrared photography.
Paint layers The paint extends up to the edges of the support. The first lay-in was executed in subdued greyish-brown tones and the composition was built up from the back to the front and from dark to light, leaving the figures in reserve. The brownish areas are thin and rather transparent, whereas the lighter and coloured parts are more opaque and dense. The painting was worked up in detail with an efficient use of many tiny brushstrokes. A cross-section shows that the sky seen through the window on the left consists of a thin layer of white, blue and some black pigment particles. Infrared photography revealed that an open door and a staircase were initially planned behind the woman’s head.
Anna Krekeler, 2022

Good. The copper plate shows some deformation, especially at the corners. Cross-sections reveal a thin, green corrosion layer between the support and the ground, which has caused adhesion problems in the past. The sprayed varnish has a slightly pitted surface.

...; ? probate inventory, Nicolaas Cornelis Hasselaar (1703-1741), Amsterdam, 12 May 1736, in the front room;¹¹SA, NA 8338, notary J. de Vicq, binder 124.? his sale, Amsterdam (R. and J. Otten), 26 April 1742, no. 8 (‘Een zeer Capitaal Binnenhuis met 10 Beeldjes, verbeeldende een Herberg, door Adriaan van Ostade geschilderd Ao. 1662 [...], hoog 1 voet 3 en een half duim, breed 1 voet 1 en een half duim [37 x 32 cm]’), fl. 430;²²Copy RKD....; sale, Jean de Jullienne (1686-1766, Paris), Paris (P. Remy et al.), 30 March 1767 sqq., no. 153 (‘Un Tableau peint en 1661, d’un sublime mérite & d’un beau clair-obscur: on voit dans une chambre, proche de la cheminée, une femme, un enfant & trois hommes, qui tiennent chacun une pipe; un quatrieme en tient une aussi & un pot; il est assis dans la cheminée. Au fond, de cette chambre, à la droite, proche d’une croisée, sont une femme & deux hommes debout, deux autres assis à table. Ce morceau est sur cuivre; il porte 13 pouces de haut, sur 17 de large [35 x 46 cm].’), 7,410 livres, to Béatrix de Choiseul-Stainville (1730-94), Duchesse de Gramont, Paris;³³Copy RKD. her brother, Etienne-François (1719-1785), Duc de Choiseul, Paris; his sale, Paris (J.F. Boileau), 1 (6) April 1772 sqq., no. 42 (‘Ce beau tableau représente l’intérieur d’une Maison de Paysans; quatre figures principales ornent le devant de la chambre; l’une d’elle a le dos tourné à la cheminée, tient un pot de grais & paroît saluer la compagnie avant de boire; près d’elle est un Enfant devant un billot sur lequel il mange sa soupe, il parle à un Chien qui le regarde; dans le fond qui indique une seconde chambre se voyent près d’une fenêtre plusieurs autres figures assises & debout occupées à fumer leurs pipes; le reste de la chambre & la terrasse sont infiniment ornés. [...] sur cuivre 17 pouces & demi de large sur 12 & demi de haut [34 x 47.5 cm].’), 8,799.19 livres, to the dealer Louis-François-Jacques Boileau;⁴⁴Copy RKD....; ? sale, Madame du Barry (1743-1793), Paris, 17 March 1777, 7,250 livres;⁵⁵E. de Goncourt and J. de Goncourt, La Du Barry, Paris 1878, p. 205; C. Hofstede de Groot, Beschreibendes und kritisches Verzeichnis der Werke der hervorragendsten holländischen Maler des XVII. Jahrhunderts, III, Esslingen/Paris 1910, p. 335, no. 620. The sale catalogue has not been located....; sale, Servad, Amsterdam (C. Ploos van Amstel et al.), 25 June 1778, no. 62 (‘Op koper, hoog 14½, br. 18 duim [37 x 46 cm] ’t Binnengezicht van een Boere Herberg; voor een Schoorsteen, aan de linkerhand, staat met de rug naar ’t vuur gekeerd, een boer met een steene kan in de linker hand, als gereed om te drinken, in de regter op zyn rug, houd hy een Pyp; hy schynd tegen een gezelschap, bestaande in een Vrouw en een Man, die zyn Pyp stopt en aan den Haard gezeteen zyn, nevens een oud Man, die op een houte Haardstoel zyn armen legt en daar agter staat, te spreken [...] op de hoogerhand van de Vrouw [...] zit een anderen Boer Meisje voor een Hakblok, waar op een Potje met Bry staat; zy schept met haar linker hand in dit Potje, en ziet terwyl over haar regter schouder naar een zwart en wit harig gevlakten Hond, die haar van de Spys iets schynt of te troggelen, alles word [...] door een Venster zydelings verlicht: naar agteren verneemt men in de sombre wyking, verscheiden rookende, spelende en drinkende Perszoonen, aan een glas Raam, waar door men Boerenhuizen en Geboomten ziet [...].’), fl. 2,900, to the dealer Pierre Fouquet Jr;⁶⁶Copy RMA....; sale, Claude Tolozan (1728-1796, Paris), Paris (A. Paillet and H. Delaroche), 23 (25) February 1801 sqq., no. 79 (‘L’intérieur d’une chambre rustique et d’un ménage hollandais, où sont rassemblés divers personnages [...]. Devant une cheminée de cuisine, on voit un paysan en veste bleuâtre, le chapeau sur l’oreille, tenant un pot à bière dans sa main droite, et semblant causer avec une bonne ménagère, ainsi qu’un homme coiffé d’un bonnet fourré, près d’un autre assis, drapé d’un manteau, et occupé à charger sa pipe, ayant une canette dans ses jambes. A droite de la cheminée, on voit encore avec intérêt une petite fille qui mange sa soupe, étant debout devant un billot, et regardant un joli chien épagneul; la partie gauche, dans un plan éloigné, laisse distinguer cinq figures, hommes et femmes, partie à une table, et occupés à boire et à fumer. [...] il suffit [...] de reporter les curieux à la fameuse vente de Julienne et à celle de Choiseuil. Sur cuivre haut de 13½ large de 17 pouces [35 x 46 cm].’), fr. 7,025, to Baron Dominique Vivant Denon (1747-1825), for Joséphine Bonaparte (1763-1814), Impératrice de France;⁷⁷GPI, F-1. recorded in her collection at Malmaison, 1811;⁸⁸Catalogue des tables de Sa Majesté l’impératrice Joséphine dans la galerie et appartements de son palais de Malmaison, coll. cat. Paris 1811; reprinted in M. de Lescure, Le Chateau de la Malmaison: Histoire, description, catalogue des objets exposés sous les auspices de Sa Majesté l’impératrice, Paris 1867, pp. 270-85, esp. p. 275, no. 96: ‘Intérieur hollandaise (cuivre)’. her probate inventory, Malmaison, 1814, no. 1039 (‘Item un tableau représentant Intérieur de ménage hollandais, prisé trois mille francs ci 3000’);⁹⁹S. Grandjean, Inventaire après décès de l’impératrice Joséphine à Malmaison, Paris 1964, p. 148....; collection Charles Ferdinand d’Artois (1778-1820), Duc de Berry, Paris;¹⁰¹⁰Lijst van schilderijen, beelden en teekeningen van Adriaan van der Hoop te Amsterdam, NHA, ARS, no. 388 (copy in Rijksmuseum Research Library), pp. 9-10, no. 113. See also the following note. sale, his dowager, Marie-Caroline de Bourbon (1798-1870, Paris), Duchesse de Berry, London (Christie’s), April 1834, no. 99 (‘In the Interior of a Cabaret. By the side of a chimney, the hostess is seated, leaning carelessly on a long wooden settle, on the back of which an old man is leaning; he is smoking, and seems to suspend his operations to join in the conversation. In the fore-ground another man, with his hat on and covered with a large bluish mantle, is filling his pipe, seated in a low chair; a third is standing warming his back before the fire, and is raising to his lips a jug; a little girl is eating soup out of a porringer placed on a block of wood; a dog is watching her attentively. In the back-ground, near an open window, three men are seated at a table smoking, and two others are standing conversing together. [...] It bears date 1661 [...] On panel 14½’ h x 18½’ [37 x 47 cm].’), £800, to Albertus Brondgeest, for Adriaan van der Hoop (1778-1854), Amsterdam;¹¹¹¹There is a wax seal with the coat of arms of Marie-Caroline de Bourbon on the reverse. Lijst van schilderijen, beelden en teekeningen van Adriaan van der Hoop te Amsterdam, NHA, ARS, no. 388 (copy in Rijksmuseum Research Library), pp. 9-10, no. 113: ‘Gedurende datzelve verblijf in London [the end of April 1834], heb ik nog aangekocht de navolgende twee Schilderyen op de verkoping, by wyze van Tentoonstelling, van het kabinet Schilderyen van het Elysée Bourbon, toe behoorende aan de Hertogin Wed.e de Berry, of eigentlyk aan haren minderjarigen Zoon den Hertog van Bourdeaux. Deze verkoping of liever Tentoonstelling wierd gehouden bij Christie en alles verkocht uit de hand zonder eenige korting tot vastgestelde pryzen; hetgeen die pryzen zyn, waarop de Schilderyen te Parys, by den dood van den Hertog van Berry zyn getauxeerd geworden. De geheele verzameling bestond uit 118 Stuks, waaruit de Heer Brondgeest voor my uitgezocht heeft de twee volmaakste en zuiverste, te weten: 113. Een Binnenhuis, door Ad: van Ostade, zynde No 99 van de gedrukte Catalogus £ 800.’ by whom bequeathed to the City of Amsterdam, with 223 other paintings, 1854;¹²¹²Taxatie van schilderijen, teekeningen en beeldhouwwerken gedaan door Pieter E.H. Praetorius en Gerrit de Vries Jz., executeuren van het testament van A. van der Hoop [...] 29 april 1854, NHA, ARS, no. 388 (copy in Rijksmuseum Research Library), p. 3, no. 113: ‘Binnenhuis boeren Haardstede met ryke stoffage’. on loan from the City of Amsterdam to the museum since 30 June 1885¹³¹³Provenance reconstructed in A. Pollmer, ‘Catalogus van de schilderijen in de verzameling van Adriaan van der Hoop’, in E. Bergvelt et al., De Hollandse meesters van een Amsterdamse bankier: De verzameling van Adriaan van der Hoop (1778-1854), exh. cat. Amsterdam (Amsterdams Historisch Museum; Rijksmuseum) 2004-05, pp. 135-95, esp. p. 167, no. 133.

ObjectNumber: SK-C-200

Credit line: On loan from the City of Amsterdam (A. van der Hoop Bequest)

This cosy interior of convivial peasants gathered around a hearth in an inn held a great attraction for a number of important eighteenth and nineteenth-century French and Dutch collectors, including Jean de Jullienne, the Duc de Choiseul, Claude Tolozan, and last but not least Adriaan van der Hoop.¹⁵¹⁵See Provenance. The painting was also owned by royalty: Empress Joséphine Bonaparte and later Charles Ferdinand d’Artois, son of Charles X of France. The critics John Smith and Théophile Thoré, who praised it with the words ‘superlative’ and ‘première beauté!’, were obviously impressed as well.¹⁶¹⁶J. Smith, A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch, Flemish and French Painters, IX, London 1842, p. 86; E.-J.-T. Thoré (pseud. W. Bürger), Musées de la Hollande, II, Paris 1860, p. 98. Adriaen van Ostade’s peasant scenes from the 1660s form the high point of his career, and this one of 1661 has often been called the finest of them all.

The interior, consisting of a diagonally placed side wall, a back wall and a ceiling, is essentially the same as that in Van Ostade’s paintings from the late 1640s and the 1650s, but as becomes apparent when it is compared to The Skaters from around 1656, for example,¹⁷¹⁷SK-A-2332. the space is much deeper. Behind the group of peasants gathered around the hearth, which resembles the one in The Skaters, is another company much further back drinking beer and smoking at a table. The diminishing width of the floor and the receding lines of the flagstones, as well as the ceiling beams, are exploited to create a compelling illusion of depth. Far removed from the dramatically spot-lit interiors of Van Ostade’s earliest works, the room is also more evenly illuminated than in those from the 1650s, and the overall green-brown hue established by the floors and walls in the pictures from that decade has been superseded by a lighter, blonde tonality. The colours of the figures’ clothing and the skirt around the mantel of the fireplace are also stronger, cooler and more varied. The paint application is smoother and tighter, approaching the Feinmalerei of such Leiden artists as Gerrit Dou. Van Ostade executed the scene on a copper support, probably in order to achieve as fine a touch as possible.¹⁸¹⁸For the characteristics of Van Ostade’s interiors of the 1660s in general see B. Schnackenburg, Adriaen van Ostade, Isack van Ostade: Zeichnungen und Aquarelle: Gesamtdarstellung mit Werkkatalogen, I, Hamburg 1981, p. 32; B. Broos, Meesterwerken in het Mauritshuis, The Hague 1987, pp. 245-47; Biesboer in P. Biesboer and M. Sitt (eds.), Satire en vermaak: Schilderkunst in de 17de eeuw: Het genrestuk van Frans Hals en zijn tijdgenoten 1610-1670, exh. cat. Haarlem (Frans Hals Museum)/Hamburg (Kunsthalle) 2003-04, p. 196; W.E. Franits, Dutch Seventeenth-Century Genre Painting: Its Stylistic and Thematic Evolution, New Haven/London 2004, p. 135.

As in The Skaters, and indeed all of Van Ostade’s indoor scenes from the 1660s, there is a proliferation of painted elements littering the floor and filling every nook and cranny of the composition. It was precisely this surfeit of carefully rendered details that Houbraken praised in his enthusiastic description of Van Ostade’s work: ‘Peasant cottages, sheds, barns, and the interiors of homes in particular, with all their shabby furniture. Inns and taverns, with their entire contents, he depicted as wittily and naturally as anyone has ever done’.¹⁹¹⁹A. Houbraken, De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen, I, Amsterdam 1718, p. 347: ‘Boere hutjes, keetjes, stalletjes, inzonderheid binnehuisjes, met al hun bouwvalligen huisraad. Herbergjes en kroegjes, met hun gantschen toestel, heeft hy zoodanig geestig en natuurlyk weten te verbeelden, als ooit iemant gedaan heeft’.

Just like in The Skaters and most of Van Ostade’s interiors since the end of the 1640s, the peasants in the present scene are well-behaved. Judging from the books on a shelf on the mantel of the fireplace and the writing on a piece of paper on the cupboard next to the fireplace, these ones may even have been able to read. Miedema raised the question whether Van Ostade’s switch from admonitory depictions of unruly bumpkins to touching, by today’s standards perhaps even sentimental, images of contented peasants and domestic tranquillity might reflect a new, positive view of the class themselves around the middle of the seventeenth century.²⁰²⁰H. Miedema, ‘Realism and Comic Mode: The Peasant’, Simiolus 9 (1977), pp. 205-19, esp. p. 219. Contemporary inscriptions on prints by and after Van Ostade often praise their hard work, point out that moments of relaxation are well-earned, and commend their contentment with simple pleasures.²¹²¹E.K.J. Reznicek, ‘Bruegels Bedeutung für das 17. Jahrhundert’, in O. von Simson and M. Winner (eds.), Pieter Bruegel und seine Welt, Berlin 1979, pp. 159-64, esp. pp. 160-61; B. Schnackenburg, Adriaen van Ostade, Isack van Ostade: Zeichnungen und Aquarelle: Gesamtdarstellung mit Werkkatalogen, I, Hamburg 1981, pp. 58-59; B. Schnackenburg, ‘Das Bild des bäuerlichen Lebens bei Adriaen van Ostade’, in H. Vekeman and J. Müller Hofstede (eds.), Wort und Bild in der niederländischen Kunst und Literatur des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts, Erftstadt 1984, pp. 30-42. Such sentiments are also to be found in poetry of the day. The change in Van Ostade’s peasant imagery has also been put down to ‘iconographic erosion’, a broader trend in Dutch genre painting away from content in favour of style. Producing for an anonymous open market had the effect that the emphasis gradually shifted from a moralizing notice to the aesthetic, formal means of art.²²²²L. de Vries, Jan Steen, ‘de kluchtschilder’, diss. University of Groningen 1977, pp. 83-88; L. de Vries, ‘The Changing Face of Realism’, in D. Freedberg and J. de Vries (eds.), Art in History, History in Art: Studies in Seventeenth-Century Dutch Culture, Santa Monica 1991, pp. 209-44, esp. pp. 229-31. An increasing civility on the part of the affluent and sophisticated owners of Van Ostade’s work may also have played a role; the initial brutish and violent peasant revelries were deemed undignified later in the century.²³²³For an overview of these interpretations see W.E. Franits, Dutch Seventeenth-Century Genre Painting: Its Stylistic and Thematic Evolution, New Haven/London 2004, pp. 137-39. Gerard de Lairesse, for example, wrote in 1714 about such low-life subject matter: ‘[…] since we scarce see a beautiful hall, or fine apartment of any cost, that is not set out with pictures of beggars, obscenities, a Geneva-stall, tobacco-smokers, fidlers, nasty children easing nature, and other things more filthy. Who can entertain his friend or a person of repute in an apartment lying thus in a litter, or where a child is bawling, or wiping clean?’ ²⁴²⁴The translation is from J.F. Fritsch, The Art of Painting, London 1817 (ed. princ. London 1738), p. 111. The original reads: ‘(...) men beschouwt naauwelyks een schoone Zaal of een heerlyk Vertrek, hoe kostelyk die ook mogen weezen, of zy zyn nu met Bedelaars, Bordeelen, Kroegen, Tabaktookers, Speelmans, besmeurde Kinders in de kakstoel, en wat noch vuilder en erger is, voorzien. Wie zou zijne vrienden, of iemand van achting, in een zaal durven ontfangen, daar het aldus over hoop legt, of daar een kind schreid of gereinigd word?’ See G. de Lairesse, Groot schilderboek, waar in de schilderkonst in al haar deelen grondig werd onderweezen, ook door redeneeringen en printverbeeldingen verklaard: Met voorbeelden uyt de beste konst-stukken der oude en nieuwe puyk-schilderen, bevestigd, Amsterdam 1714, p. 171.

Jonathan Bikker, 2022

See Key to abbreviations, Rijksmuseum painting catalogues and Acknowledgements

J. Smith, A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch, Flemish and French Painters, I, London 1829, p. 112, no. 19, pp. 120-21, no. 49; ibid, IX, 1842, p. 86, no. 22; C. Hofstede de Groot, Beschreibendes und kritisches Verzeichnis der Werke der hervorragendsten holländischen Maler des XVII. Jahrhunderts, III, Esslingen/Paris 1910, p. 335, no. 620; B. Schnackenburg, Adriaen van Ostade, Isack van Ostade: Zeichnungen und Aquarelle: Gesamtdarstellung mit Werkkatalogen, I, Hamburg 1981, p. 32; B. Broos, Meesterwerken in het Mauritshuis, The Hague 1987, p. 247; R. Priem, Dutch Masters from the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, exh. cat. Melbourne (National Gallery of Victoria) 2005, pp. 214-15; A. Ebert, Adriaen van Ostade und die komische Malerei des 17. Jahrhunderts, Berlin 2013, pp. 110, 121, 152, 157-59

1887, p. 128, no. 1075; 1903, p. 202, no. 1817; 1934, p. 216, no. 1817; 1960, p. 234, no. 1817; 1976, p. 430, no. C 200

Jonathan Bikker, 2022, 'Adriaen van Ostade, Peasants in an Interior, 1661', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.4899