Support The single, vertically grained oak plank is approx. 0.7 cm thick. Wooden strips (approx. 0.5-0.8 cm) were added on all sides at a later date. The reverse has regularly spaced saw marks. Dendrochronology has shown that the youngest heartwood ring was formed in 1643. The panel could have been ready for use by 1652, but a date in or after 1662 is more likely.
Preparatory layers The double ground does not extend over the edges of the support. The first, pinkish layer contains large white and some smaller red and orange pigment particles. The second ground is a light brownish grey and consists of large white and black pigment particles with an addition of small red and ochre-coloured pigment particles.
Underdrawing No underdrawing could be detected with the naked eye or infrared photography.
Paint layers The paint does not extend over the edges of the support. The composition was built up from dark to light, holding the figures in reserve. The woman’s red sleeve was executed over her brown jacket, and the greyish-brown turned cuff was then painted over the sleeve. The darkest grey of the background was applied first, followed by the lighter grey on the left, partially extending over it. On the right the dark grey was covered by a lighter grey, with a reserve for the window; the darker paint has remained visible in the latter’s wooden parts. The view was added last. At some stage the man’s black hat was moved slightly to the right. The paint surface is smooth, with hardly any visible brushstrokes.
Anna Krekeler, 2022

Fair. The paint layer has several small losses and some discoloured retouching. The thick varnish is uneven and has yellowed severely, and shows some matte spots; a long diagonal scratch runs through the male figure.

…; sale, Jonkheer Johan Goll van Franckenstein Jr (1756-1821, Amsterdam), Amsterdam (J. de Vries et al.), 1 July 1833 sqq., no. 58 (‘hoog 2 p. 1 d. breed 1 p. 9 d. [21 x 19 cm] Paneel. Aan eene ten halve gedekte tafel zit eene Boerin, houdende een ten halve gevulde kelk in de handen, nevens haar een boer met eene bierkan, welke haar schijnt toe te spreken of naar haar te verkeeren; […].’), fl. 515, to Jeronimo de Vries, for Adriaan van der Hoop (1778-1854), Amsterdam;¹¹Lijst van schilderijen, beelden en teekeningen van Adriaan van der Hoop te Amsterdam, NHA, ARS, no. 388 (copy in Rijksmuseum Research Library), p. 4, no. 55: ‘Voorstelling van A. van Ostade, als boven [Goll van Franckenstein sale] 515.’ by whom bequeathed to the City of Amsterdam, with 223 other paintings, 1854;²²Taxatie 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. 1, no. 55: ‘Een Binnenhuis met twee beelden fl. 450’. on loan from the City of Amsterdam to the museum since 30 June 1885³³Provenance 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. 134.

Object number: SK-C-201

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

The subject of a few peasants drinking, smoking and chatting was a favourite of Adriaen van Ostade’s. Often men feature in these scenes, but sometimes they also include members of the opposite sex, as in the present painting of 1672. The artist had used the composition of two half-length figures, the woman shown in profile, the man frontally, almost 20 years earlier, in 1653.⁵⁵London, The National Gallery; illustrated in N. MacLaren, The Dutch School: 1600-1900, coll. cat. London (The National Gallery) 1991, II, pl. 259. As in that work, this amorous couple are well beyond the first bloom of youth. They were probably based on drawings in Van Ostade’s studio stock. The man, for example, appears in a number of slightly earlier pictures of his; the pose and downward glance are especially close to the drinker in a painting of 1666 in Montpellier.⁶⁶Musée Fabre; illustrated in Q. Buvelot, M. Hilaire and O. Zeder, Tableaux flamands et hollandais du Musée Fabre de Montpellier, coll. cat. Montpellier 1998, p. 145.

In addition to the standard accoutrements in such scenes of flirting couples – the tankard, wine glass and pipe – a waffle has been included on the table. This unusual item also occurs in another painting with a courting pair by Van Ostade, probably from around the same time.⁷⁷Collection of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II; illustrated in C. White, The Dutch Pictures in the Collection of Her Majesty the Queen, Cambridge 1982, pl. 112. It may be a play on words, for ‘waffle’ in Dutch is wafel and is similar to waffel (mouth or snout), waffelen (to chat or babble) and waffelaar (waffler).

Probably because of the skewed perspective and summary execution of the background, one scholar felt that the Rijksmuseum work had been painted over by a later, less capable hand.⁸⁸R. Dohme (ed.), Kunst und Künstler Deutschlands und der Niederlande bis gegen/um die Mitte des achtzehnten Jahrhunderts, II, Leipzig 1878, p. 37. Although the technical examination provided no evidence of tampering with that part of the composition, one has to conclude that the picture as a whole is a rather perfunctory performance and agree with the assessment Théophile Thoré made when he saw it hanging on a wall in the Van der Hoop collection: ‘A second Adriaen van Ostade, Interior with Two Figures, was hung very high up and looks unimportant’.⁹⁹E.-J.-T. Thoré (pseud. W. Bürger), Musées de la Hollande, II, Paris 1860, p. 99: ‘Un second Adriaan van Ostade, “Intérieur avec deux figures”, est accroché très-haut et paraît insignificant’.

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, IX, London 1842, p. 81, no. 7 (as dated 1642), p. 115, no. 119; C. Hofstede de Groot, Beschreibendes und kritisches Verzeichnis der Werke der hervorragendsten holländischen Maler des XVII. Jahrhunderts, III, Esslingen/Paris 1910, p. 232, no. 287

1887, p. 128, no. 1076 (as dated 1642); 1903, p. 202, no. 1819; 1934, p. 216, no. 1819; 1976, p. 430, no. C 201

Jonathan Bikker, 2022, 'Adriaen van Ostade, A Couple in an Interior, 1672', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/200107825