Lot 1060 Dα

This interior scene with a peasant family is an early work of the Haarlem artist Isaac van Ostade. Manfred Schnackenburg has convincingly illustrated it to have been painted in the 1630s when the artist was around 17 or 18 (cf. Schnackenburg's 2014 expertise). The style, composition and motif are similar to two other barn interiors, one of which is dated 1639 and kept in the Alte Pinakothek in Munich (cf. illus. 1; Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Munich, inv. no. 5132).

Isaac van Ostade depicts a peasant family gathered around the fireplace in a rustic interior. The farmer, his wife and a child are shown gazing at a baby in a cradle, and to the side we see a man fetching beer from a barrel. This work illustrates van Ostade's early prowess in the economical depiction of light and space. The artist has painted the crooked walls of the barn interior, its uneven floor and all its many furnishings in a reduced and almost monochrome palette. He leaves a large portion of the room in shadow, with the peasant family occupying a small patch of light coming from the window on the left. Van Ostade is also somewhat frugal in his use of colour, the blue of the sky and the red, blue and purple of the clothing are all the artist needs to add life to the scene. This work belongs to a tradition of the Dutch peasant genre, which the talented but short-lived (he died aged just 28) artist Isaac van Ostade adopted from his brother and teacher Adriaen. Together with the Fleming Adriaen Brouwer, it was Adriaen van Ostade who was largely responsible for popularising this genre in the early 17th century.