Adriaen van Ostade
Interior with Drinking Figures and Crying Children

CultureDutch
Titles
  • Interior with Drinking Figures and Crying Children
  • Drinking Figures and Crying Children
Date1634
PlaceNetherlands
MediumOil on panel
DimensionsPanel: 12 1/4 × 16 7/8 in. (31.1 × 42.9 cm)
Credit LineSarah Campbell Blaffer Foundation, Houston
Object numberBF.1979.4
Current Location
The Audrey Jones Beck Building
217 Blaffer Galleries
On view

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Object Type
Description

This raucous peasant scene appeals to multiple senses: one can almost hear the boisterous laughing and yelling, smell the pipe smoke, and feel the warmth of the fire.


 Over the course of his long career, Dutch artist Adriaen van Ostade frequently depicted peasant scenes in paintings and etchings. In this early work, Van Ostade portrayed the rowdier side of peasant behavior, an effect heightened by the unsteadiness of both the figures and the architecture. A young boy beats a girl with a spoon amid a group of reveling adults at right, and two people at left tend to the fire. The refined pinks and blues contrast with the brown tones and, along with the dramatic use of light, intensify the crudeness of the scene. Van Ostade's later works tend to present peasants behaving in a more proper fashion.


Provenance[P. de Boer Gallery, Amsterdam]; purchased by the Sarah Campbell Blaffer Foundation, 1979.
Exhibition History“Masterpieces of European Painting from the 14th to 20th Centuries from The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and the Sarah Campbell Blaffer Foundation," The Museum of Art, Ehime, Matsuyama, Japan, April 13–May 30, 1999; Chiba Prefectural Art Museum, Japan, June 5–July 11, 1999; Mie Prefectural Art Museum, Tsu, Japan, July 17–August 22, 1999; Fukuoka Art Museum, Japan, August 27–October 3, 1999.

"Picturing the Senses in European Art," Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, April 10–July 17, 2011.

"Genre Scenes, Portraits and Still-life: Dutch and Flemish Paintings of the 16th and 17th Centuries," El Paso Museum of Art, September 16, 2012–January 6, 2013.
Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks
Signed and dated lower right: A. Ostade 1634

Cataloguing data may change with further research.

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1654
Etching and engraving on laid paper, state III/VI
2022.308
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Adriaen van Ostade
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Etching on laid paper
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Provided
Adriaen van Ostade
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Etching on laid paper, state VII/XI
2017.420