Adriaen van Ostade (1610-1685)

CONTENTS INTRODUCTION p. 14 - Adriaen van Ostade's life and work - The etchings and their dating - The history of Adriaen van Ostade's etched plates and their owners - Technical details about the etched plates - Literature CATALOGUE p. .. I N T R O D U C T I O N ADRIAEN VAN OSTADE'S LIFE AND WORK Adriaen Jansz. van Ostade was born in Haarlem in 1610, son of the weaver Jan Hendricx van Eyndhoven and Janneke Hendriksen van Woensel. His parents had left their native area in Southern Holland to move north to Haarlem, centre of the Dutch textile industry. Their move was prompted by the religious persecution of the time, which had also led many talented artists from the Southern Netherlands to move north. Many of these came to Haarlem, which became an important centre of the arts. Adriaen had a number of siblings, one of whom, Isack (1621-1649), became his pupil and later a successful artist. Adriaen first married in 1638 but was widowed in 1642. He then married Anna Ingels (d. 1666) in 1657. Only one child from his second marriage, Maria Johanna, is known to have survived him. Early sources report that he moved to Amsterdam for some time, but this is uncertain, and Ostade is now believed to have lived in his native town probably all his life. He died on 27 April 1685, and was buried in the Groote or Sint Bavo Kerk in Haarlem on 2 May 1685. Adriaen is thought to have been a pupil of Frans Hals (circa 1582/3-1666) together with Adriaen Brouwer (circa 1605/6-1638), both of Flemish origin. Hals's influence can only rarely be seen in the oeuvre of these pupils, although his famous portrait of Malle Babbe in the Gemäldegalerie, Berlin, illustrates a shared interest in the depiction of low-life scenes. In 1636 Ostade joined the Civic Guard of Haarlem, and is mentioned as a member of the local Guild of Saint Luke as from 1641. He became a Dean of the Guild in 1662. Apart from his brother Isack, his pupils included Richard Brakenburgh, Cornelis Bega, Cornelis Dusart and very probably Jan Steen. Of these only Bega and Dusart are known for their etchings, which clearly illustrate Ostade's influence in subject and style. Ostade's work as a painter, draughtsman, water-colourist and printmaker makes him probably the most important 'peintre-graveur' of 17th Century Holland after Rembrandt. Depictions of domestic life in Holland had already been taken up by fellow-artists like Dirck Hals, Judith Leyster, and differently by Nicolaes Maes and Pieter de Hooch. Most fellow-artists in and outside Haarlem of his time showed elegantly dressed middle and upper class society in their richly decorated houses. Ostade, however, chose to immortalize the Dutch lower class population, portraying them in their day-to-day activities. Farmers, simple craftsmen, tradesmen or musicians and their families are shown, in and near their simple cottages and inns, drinking, cooking, eating, smoking, conversing, quarrelling, praying, fishing, courting, music making and dancing while feasting and playing games. In his own charming way he thus provided an intriguing insight into Dutch 17th Century low-life so well known to him. A print by Jan de Visscher (1632-after 1692), after one of Ostade's lost paintings of a peasant family at home, bears an inscription that may be translated as 'Yet we love our little child from the heart and that is no trifle/Thus we regard our miserable hovel as a splendid mansion' (B. Schnackenburg, Adriaen van Ostade, Isack van Ostade, Zeichnungen und Aquarelle, Hamburg, 1981, p. 58, no. 55), implying that the joys of family life compensated for the deprivations of poverty. As Martin Royalton-Kisch has pointed out (Adriaen and Isack van Ostade and their Followers, exhibition leaflet, London, 1995), Ostade's works also 'employ allegory, metaphor and double-entendres in a way that was popular at that time. In 1681, Johan de Brune the Younger wrote that the Dutch take more pleasure in puzzles, witticisms and jests in which something secretive and hidden has been inserted than in things that are understood at first glance. The drawings by the van Ostades and their followers are layered with meaning and present images which both delight and instruct the viewer'. Exceptions in his oeuvre are the portrait of his own family, now in the Louvre, showing a middle-class interior with well-dressed people, and a few pictures of scholars in their study. Pure landscapes and biblical scenes appear only very rarely in his work. Rembrandt's influence can be observed in the strongly contrasted dark and light effects in Ostade's oeuvre, including his etchings. Ostade had many followers in the next generation of Haarlem artists. With Cornelis Dusart (1660-1704), who became the curator of Ostade's workshop in 1685, continuing his style and often reworking the drawings of both Adriaen and Isack, Ostade's influence reached well into the 18th Century. His output was widely appreciated during his lifetime (the Paris dealer Pierre Mariette owned two of his prints by 1668) and remained popular throughout the centuries to the present day with high prices consistently paid for his work. His charming picture of a peasant family in an interior of a cottage dated 1661, from the Goldschmidt Collection, was sold for a record price of $ 1,982,500 on 11 January of this year at Christie's in New York. THE ETCHINGS AND THEIR DATING Ostade's earliest dated picture is dated 1633, one year after he was recorded as a painter. Of Ostade's fifty etchings only ten were dated by the artist, spanning a period of more than thirty years: 1647: The Organ Grinder (Bartsch 8) The Barn (B.23) The Family (B.46) 1648: The Pater Familias (B.33) The Quacksalver (B.43) 1652: The Woman spinning (B.31) 1653: The Peasants' Quarrel (B.18) Saying Grace (B.34) 1671: The Cobbler (B.27) 1679: The Doll (B.16). Adam von Bartsch's first catalogue raisonné of the etchings in Le Peintre-Graveur of 1803 is arranged by the type and number of figures depicted and not by their dating. Ever since scholars have attempted to arrange the prints by grouping and dating them through stylistic analyses, more recently comparing the etchings to the related drawings, themselves rarely dated. Louis Godefroy's dating of the prints in his detailed l'Oeuvre gravé de Adriaen van Ostade, Paris, 1930, has since been questioned. In 1981 Bernhard Schnackenburg (op.cit., pp. 45-7) proposed a chronological arrangement of the prints, which is strengthened by the recent discovery that the plates of B.12, 25, 36 and 39 are interrelated through their use previous to Ostade's etching them (see technical details). Schnackenburg (op.cit., p. 46), probably erroneously, lists B.44 as having been dated 1654 by Ostade. More recently, S. William Pelletier (S.W. Pelletier, L.J. Slatkes and L. Stone-Ferrier, Adriaen van Ostade, Etchings of Peasant Life in Holland's Golden Age, exhibition catalogue, Georgia, 1994/5, p. 13) interestingly pointed out three Ostade etchings bearing not only the signature of the Paris dealer Pierre Mariette (1634-1716), but also his dating, providing a rather secure terminus ante quem for these, which do not contradict current ideas: Mariette's date dated by Schnackenburg dated by Slatkes B.10 III/IV: 1668 circa 1660-70 circa 1660-70 B.13 V/VI: 1670 before 1647 ? circa 1646 B.40 III/V : 1668 circa 1653-after 1660 circa 1648-54. Professor Leonard Slatkes, who has examined all the plates in the original, is currently preparing a new catalogue raisonné of Ostade's etchings, which will describe a number of new states. Through his research of the prints and the related drawings, watercolours and pictures he has proposed an even more precise dating of the prints than Schnackenburg. As he pointed out, at least 32 drawings for Adriaen's fifty etchings are known, in many instances more than one study for a single print. Even when drawings are dated, this does not necessarily indicate a secure contemporary dating for the related etchings, as some are known to differ in date by a period of more than twenty years (Preparatory drawings for prints by Adriaen van Ostade, Drawings Defined, New York, 1987, p. 229). For this catalogue he has kindly supplied us with his most recent information on the dating. Known related drawings, watercolours and pictures are listed with each print as far as possible. THE HISTORY OF ADRIAEN VAN OSTADE'S ETCHED PLATES AND THEIR OWNERS While Rembrandt's etched plates are known to have been partly sold during his lifetime, and became widely dispersed and partly lost later, Ostade's etched plates seem always to have remained together with the exception of B.1 and B.2, which were lost and replaced in the early 19th Century by the copies now offered, and B.24a, which also seems to have been lost at that time, possibly because it was omitted by Bartsch and therefore doubted. The following chronology attempts to give an indication of the plates' whereabouts up to the present day: 27 April 1685 Adriaen van Ostade died in Haarlem. 2 May 1685 Adriaen van Ostade was buried in Haarlem. 19 June 1685 The sale of objects from Ostade's estate, including his etched plates, was announced in De oprechte Haerlemsche Courant (the original is in the Stichting Museum Enschedé, Haarlem): 'Den 3 July, en volgende dagen, sal men tot Haerlem verkopen alle de nagelaten Konst van zalr. Adriaen van Ostade, bestaende in meer als 200 stucx Schilderyen, van hem gedaen, en dan noch een quantiteyt van verscheyde Meesters; voorts al sijn geëtste Platen; als oock een groote quantiteyt Prenten, Teyckeningen, &c. soo door hem als van andere Meesters; waer van de Biljetten alom zijn aengeplackt.' (On the third July and following days will be sold in Haarlem all the art left by Adriaen van Ostade deceased, consisting of more than 200 pictures done by him, and a quantity by various masters; furthermore all his etched plates, as well as a large quantity of prints, drawings, etc. by him and other masters.....). 3 July 1685 ff. The sale took place under the direction of members of the Guild of Saint Luke. For unknown reasons Dirck van der Stoel (d. 1723), Ostade's son-in-law who had married his daughter Maria Johanna (d. 1688) on 21 April 1685, bought the plates back or had them withdrawn from the sale. 27 April 1686 Van der Stoel offered the plates for sale in De oprechte Haerlemsche Courant: 'Dirck vander Stoel presenteert te verkopen alle de ge-etste Platen van zalr. sijn Schoon-Vader Adriaen van Ostade, bestaende in 50 stux, benevens alle de drucken, by hem berustende. Die gading heeft, adressere sig aen de voorn. vander Stoel, Chirurgijn, tot Haerlem.' (Dirck vander Stoel offers for sale all the etched plates of his deceased father-in-law, consisting of 50 pieces, besides all impressions in his possession. Anyone interested should approach the aforementioned vander Stoel, surgeon at Haarlem). The sale was probably successful, as he is not mentioned as the owner later on. 22 May 1694 De oprechte Haerlemsche Courant again announced the sale of the plates: 'Op Maendagh, den 24 Mey, sullen tot Haerlem in 't Heeren Logement verkocht werden verschyde Nederduytse en andere, Boecken mitsgaders Papier Konst en alle de geëtse Platen van Adriaen van Oostade; en op Dinsdagh, den 25 dito, Konstige Schilderyen; daer onder veele van Adriaen van Oostade en van andere brave Meesters, &c.' (On Monday 24 May will be sold in Haarlem at the Heeren Logement various nether-german and other books and works on paper and all etched plates by Adriaen van Oostade; and on Tuesday, the 25th ditto, ingenious pictures; among others many by Adriaen van Oostade and other honest masters etc.). 24 May 1694 The sale of the plates took place, probably successfully. Circa 1712-1716 Bernard Picart (1673-1733), who had come to live in Holland circa 1710, probably owned the copper plates by then, and proceeded to publish Adriaen van Ostade's complete etchings in Amsterdam. This set included a title-plate (L. Godefroy, op.cit., p. 1, see lot 49 in this sale) and Jacob Gole's mezzotint portrait of Ostade after Dusart (Hollstein 103, see lot 50 in this sale). An exemple of this edition is in the British Museum, London, where the impressions of B.32 and B.47 are pasted in. The set otherwise lacks only B.48. It does not include any other prints or copies after Ostade, and lacks B.35, which is not by Ostade though later catalogued as such by Bartsch. Picart probably also published Ostade's etchings printed in colour, for instance that of B. 34 in the Collection of S.W. Pelletier, Pelletier a.o., op.cit., pp. 180-1, illustrated, and that of B.9 in the Rijksprentenkabinet, Amsterdam. The plates must subsequently have been acquired by the collector Pieter de Haan (1723-1766). 9 March 1767 All fifty copper plates were included in the sale of the collection of Pieter de Haan, H. de Winter, J. and P. Yver, 'De Keizerskroon', Amsterdam, Byvoegzel Van een groot deel Gegraveerde Kopere Konst-Platen, p. 235, lot 80: 'Het fraaije eyge geëtste Werk van Ostade, 51 stuks Plaaten compleet, met een pissend Boertje, na Ostade,'t Pourtret en een Tytelplaat, te zamen 54 stuks, benevens een Exemplaar.' (the attractive etched work of Ostade himself, the complete 51 pieces of copperplate, with a pissing peasant, after Ostade, the portrait and a title plate, altogether 54 pieces, along with a Copy), f.129.10 to Pierre Fouquet Jr. (1729-1800). He probably bought the plates for the Paris publisher Pierre-François Basan. 75 Rembrandt plates in the same sale (lots 2-76) made f.432.75, several of which were bought by Fouquet as well, probably on commission for the Paris engraver and art critic Claude-Henri Watelet. Upon his death in 1786 these Rembrandt plates were also acquired by Pierre-François Basan. Circa 1771 (?) Godefroy mentions the edition of Ostade's prints by the 'Overyssels Konstgenootschap' (The Society of Fine Arts of Overijssel) printed in colour, probably following L.E. Faucheux, Supplément au Peintre-Graveur, de Bartsch, Catalogue raisonné de toutes les estampes qui forment l'oeuvre gravé d'Adriaen van Ostade, Paris, 1862, p. XV, who described such a publication of twenty-three prints. No such edition seems to be known today. Faucheux was probably confused by the Society's publication of a set of copies printed in colour after Ostade's etchings by Bernard Schreuder (d. 1780): Het werk van den Alöm beroemde Konst-Schilder Adriaan van Ostade, Volgens de Mannier als Teekeningen in het koper gebragt, en met alle zyn Kleuren gedrukt, Door Het Overyssels Konstgenootschap, Onder de Zinspreuk ARTIVM TRISTIS IANVA. This set was probably first published in 1771 and offered for sale with Frederik Willem Greebe on the Dam in Amsterdam. A complete set is in the Rijksprentenkabinet, Amsterdam. 1780 As recounted by Godefroy (op.cit., p. 41), the Paris publisher Pierre-François Basan (1723-1797) announced the sale of Ostade's prints in his catalogue: 'composé de cinquante-deux petits et moyens sujets, très pittoresques gravés à l'eau-forte par lui-même', adding two apocryphal prints: A Woman catching Fleas (B.35) and The pissing Peasant (Hollstein B), the price being 24 livres. The plates by then clearly were owned by Basan. He later bought many of the Rembrandt plates that came from the 1767 De Haan sale in Amsterdam (see above). 1791 Basan offered impressions from Ostade's plates for sale in his Dictionnaire des Graveurs Anciens et Modernes depuis l'Origine de la Gravure, Brussels, 1791, listing prints popular at the time: B.49, 10, 32, 47, 46, 41, 18 and 31 (in that order). 1797 After Basan's death, the plates probably passed on to his son Henry-Louis together with the Rembrandt plates. As Erik Hinterding (The history of Rembrandt's copperplates, Simiolus, Netherlands Quarterly for the History of Art, XXII, 1993/4, no. 4, p. 279) points out, it was Henry-Louis who scratched numbers onto the backs of Rembrandt's etched plates. Some of the numbering on Ostade's plates may also be that of Henry-Louis Basan. Circa 1803 In his Catalogue des Planches gravées qui composent le fond de BASAN..., Paris, 1803 or thereafter, Henry-Louis Basan lists impressions from the plates under no. 1068, 'l'oeuvre de ce maître composé de cinquante deux petits et moyens sujets, très pittoresquement gravés'. They bore the old price: 24 livres. Circa 1810 Probably along with those of Rembrandt, Ostade's plates were acquired by the Paris publisher Auguste Jean (d. 1820). His widow (the 'Veuve Jean') very probably continued printing from the plates after 1820. The editions known from this period contain impressions from the (now offered) copies of B.1 and B.2, replacing the original plates, which by then were either lost or difficult to rework because of their size (see lot 48 in this sale). These editions lack B. 24a, the plate of which was also lost by then. 1846 Ostade's plates may be assumed to have been sold together with those of Rembrandt from the estate of the 'Veuve Jean' to the Paris publisher and engraver Auguste Bernard (see Hinterding, loc.cit.). Hinterding mentions that Auguste's son Michel Bernard took over his father's business in about 1875. As Slatkes has suggested (Pelletier a.o., op.cit., p. 18), a 19th Century edition, produced after the reworking of the plates, was anonymously published. This may have been done by the Bernards (see the set preserved in the Rijksprentenkabinet, Amsterdam, inv.no. of books 1937:93). Ostade's and Rembrandt's plates were later sold to the Paris dealer Alvin-Beaumont. 1906 Alvin-Beaumont published a limited number of impressions of Rembrandt's plates on the occasion of the artist's 300th birthday (Les Cuivres de Rembrandt 1606-1906, Alvin-Beaumont, 197 Boulevard St. Germain, Paris, a complete set now with Prouté, Paris). 1924 An anonymous author with initials P.M. (Les Eaux-Fortes de Adriaan van Ostade (1610-1685), Byblis, III, Paris, 1924, pp. 99-101) mentioned 'l'expert Alvin-Beaumont' as the owner of Ostade's plates, who made one of them available for the publication of original impressions in the article. 1930 Godefroy (op.cit., p. 41) mentioned the plates as being in a Private Collection in Paris, which may be assumed to be Alvin-Beaumont's. 1938 An uncle of the present owners acquired Ostade's plates in Paris, probably from Alvin-Beaumont, who in the same year is known to have sold the Rembrandt plates to the American collector Robert L. Humber. 1941 E.H. Kok, father of the present owners, acquired the plates from his brother. In the same year he commissioned a limited edition of seventy, the etchings printed on 32 sheets of wove paper, by Johannes Enschedé & Zonen in Haarlem: De Etsen van Adriaen van Ostade. The set included the copies of B.1 and B.2 (though this is not mentioned in the accompanying text), and lacked B.24a and B.35 as in the editions of the 19th Century. The set also included a brief introduction by J.G. van Gelder and cost f. 250. For this publication the copper plates were steelfaced through electrolysis. The plates have remained in the family ever since. 1995 The steelfacing was chemically removed. TECHNICAL DETAILS ABOUT THE ETCHED PLATES This catalogue includes technical details regarding each of the etched plates: signature, date, the current known last and final state, size, weight, and details of the reverse of the plates. The copper of Rembrandt's etched plate for The Presentation of the Temple (B.49) was analyzed circa 1916 and reported to consist of 95 copper, 1 tin and 0.5 lead, traces of silver and unspecified amounts of iron, arsenic and zinc. This copper was probably imported from Hessen, Germany, in the mid-17th Century (Hinterding, op.cit., p. 256, note 13). Like Rembrandt's, Adriaen van Ostade's copperplates are cold-hammered, quite thick, and therefore difficult to bend. On the reverse many of them show fine hammer and punch marks, which were needed to adjust the level of the copper on the etched side of the plate in parts that needed corrections to the subject. By partly re-etching the plates or using drypoint in these areas, the artist created the numerous different states we find in his etchings. The plates thus give a very interesting insight into Ostade's working methods, applying the hammer and punch marks from the reverse of the plates. Like those of Rembrandt's plates, the backs of Ostade's plates show scratched numbers or letters, sometimes several, often barely legible. Some of these may have been applied in Ostade's time. As Hinterding has pointed out (op.cit., p. 279, note 136), a series of numbers on the reverse of Rembrandt's etched plates were scratched onto these by Pierre-François Basan's son Henry-Louis, the prints appearing in this order in his Recueil. The numbers on Ostade's plates may likewise have been applied by Henry-Louis or another publisher of his prints. Professor Slatkes has alternatively suggested that the numbers could be shelfmarks. Having been little studied before, in recent years the documentary and commercial aspects of print publishing in the 16th and 17th Century in the Netherlands have been examined in detail by N. Orenstein, H. Leeflang, G. Luijten, C. Schuckman, Print Publishers in the Netherlands 1580-1620, Dawn of the Golden Age, Northern Netherlands Art 1580-1620, exhibition catalogue, Amsterdam/Zwolle, 1993, pp.167-200. Knowledge has thus been gathered about the printing, trading and prices of used plates and their impressions, and also regarding copyright and printer's rights. It frequently happened that upon his death, an artist's etched or engraved plates were sold to a printer or a publisher who, sometimes adding his name on the plates, continued publishing the prints. Ostade clearly did not sell his plates during his lifetime, and may be assumed to have published his own etchings. On B.19, 32 and 49 his name indeed appears as publisher ('et excud.'). Less is known as to how and where blank copper plates were sold to artists, whether for painting or for etching and engraving, nor about prices for such plates. According to Orenstein a.o., op.cit., p. 171, one indication appears in the sale of Nicolaes de Clerck's plates of 1626, when Broer Jansz. paid 3 guilders and 2 stuivers for an unengraved copperplate of unspecified size. Jorgen Wadum has kindly informed us that the exhibition Old Master Paintings on Copper, 1550 - 1750 is scheduled to open at the Phoenix Art Museum in late 1998 or early 1999, which may shed more light on this subject. As is shown below, we know that Rembrandt and Ostade bought their second-hand copper plates from the same source. It therefore seems possible that their new copper plates also came from one and the same source. Artists are known to have used the back of copperplates already used for printmaking. Old plates, outdated because of their previous use through text or subject, were less expensive than completely blank ones. Rembrandt's plate for The Return of the Prodigal Son (B.91), dated 1636, now in the Rembrandthuis, Amsterdam, bears a geometrical illustration of the squaring of a circle on the reverse (Hinterding, op.cit., p. 255, fig. 3). The plate was first used by Ferdinand van Aertsz. for an illustration in Descubrimientos Geométricos by the Spanish mathematician Juan Alfonso de Molina Cano, published in Antwerp in 1598. A Latin edition was published by Nicolaes Jansonius in Arnhem in 1620, in which this illustration appears on p. 55 (copy in the Universiteitsbibliotheek, Amsterdam). It has now been discovered that the reverse of Ostade's etched plates used for B.12 and B.25, as well as those used for B.36 and B.39, show similar engraved geometrical subjects on the reverse. Put together, they form two plates which were used for the illustrations of a rectangle and a half circle, published on pp. 10 and 13 respectively of de Molina Cano's book in the Arnhem edition of 1620. Slatkes dates B.12 and B.25 to after 1670 and to circa 1671 respectively, and B.36 and B.39 to 1654-60 and 1653 respectively, not differing much from Schnackenburg. If this dating is correct, this indicates that Ostade, who cut both plates in two for his own use, may have left one of them unetched in circa 1653-60, only to use it by 1670-1. Although Rembrandt's etching on Aertsz.'s plate dates from 1636, and Ostade's use of the two plates must be dated later, this proves that both artists bought their second-hand plates from the same source. Ostade's work proved popular from the start, and some of his prints were already being copied in the 17th Century: in 1699 the eleven year-old Haarlem artist Jacob Laurensz. van der Vinne (1688-1737) copied several of his prints (Hollstein XXXVIII, nos. 2-5). Because of their popularity, the original plates were re-worked several times in order to make new impressions, but like Rembrandt's plates, which have also known a large number of editions up to this century, they are still well enough preserved to show us the delicate details which we know from the impressions pulled from the plates. As Hinterding notes regarding the Rembrandt plates, 'Until well into the nineteenth century they were regarded as a commodity by various printers and publishers, and were used to meet the demand .... . When that function was usurped by new reproduction techniques in the late nineteenth century, the plates lost their usefulness, and from the beginning of the present century they were only preserved and valued as relics of one of the greatest etchers of all time. Now, though, it seems that the plates are coming to be valued as works of art in their own right whose aesthetic effect is by no means inferior to that of a good impression' (Hinterding, op.cit., p. 284). LITERATURE Alvin-Beaumont Alvin-Beaumont, Les Cuivres de Rembrandt 1606-1906, Paris, 1906 Bartsch A. von Bartsch, Le Peintre-Graveur, Vienna, 1803 Basan P.F. Basan, Dictionnaire des Graveurs Anciens et Modernes depuis l'Origine de la Gravure, Brussels, 1791 Faucheux L.E. Faucheux, Supplément au Peintre-Graveur de Bartsch, Catalogue raisonné de toutes les estampes qui forment l'oeuvre gravé d'Adriaen van Ostade, Paris, 1862 Godefroy L. Godefroy, L'Oeuvre gravé de Adriaen van Ostade, Paris, 1930 (a recent edition including English text: The complete Etchings of Adriaen van Ostade, Amsterdam, 1990) Hinterding E. Hinterding, The history of Rembrandt's copperplates, Simiolus, Netherlands Quarterly for the History of Art, XXII, Apeldoorn/Utrecht, 1993/4, no. 4, pp. 253-315 De Molina Cano Juan Alfonso de Molina Cano, Descubrimientos Geométricos, Antwerp, 1598 (later edition in Latin: Nova Reperta Geometrica, Arnhem, 1620) Orenstein and others (a.o.) N. Orenstein, H. Leeflang, G. Luijten, C. Schuckman, Print Publishers in the Netherlands 1580-1620, Dawn of the Golden Age, Northern Netherlands Art 1580-1620, exhibition catalogue, Amsterdam/Zwolle, 1993, pp. 167-100 Pelletier and others (a.o.) S.W. Pelletier, L.J. Slatkes, L. Stone-Ferrier, Adriaen van Ostade, Etchings of Peasant Life in Holland's Golden Age, exhibition catalogue, Georgia, 1994/5 P.M. Anonymous author P.M., Les Eaux-Fortes de Adriaan van Ostade (1610-1685), Byblis, III, Paris, 1924, pp. 99-101. It has been suggested that the author may be identified as the Paris artist and collector Paul Mathey (1844-1929), see Lugt 2100b Royalton-Kisch M. Royalton-Kisch, Adriaen and Isack van Ostade and their Followers, exhibition leaflet, London, 1995 Schnackenburg B. Schnackenburg, Adriaen van Ostade, Isack van Ostade, Zeichnungen und Aquarelle, Hamburg, 1981 Slatkes L.J. Slatkes, Preparatory drawings for prints by Adriaen van Ostade, Drawings Defined, New York, 1987 MONDAY, 13 NOVEMBER 1995 Catalogue All sales subject to the conditions printed in this catalogue Estimates. Please see under Special Information EVENING SESSION AT 7.00 P.M. PRECISELY (Lots 1 - 50) (all plates are illustrated in original size unless otherwise stated)

Details

Adriaen van Ostade (1610-1685)

Peasant in a pointed Fur Cap (B.3)

etched copper plate, signed with initials in reverse 'Av o', with inscriptions '45/B' and engraved numbers '4/43' on the reverse; seventh (final) state, 40 gr.
70 x 59 mm.

Lot Essay

The preliminary study for this, in the same sense, signed with monogram, and two further studies of the same model are in the British Museum, London (Schnackenburg, op.cit., nos. 81, 113-4). Schnackenburg dates this plate to circa 1653-after 1660, while Slatkes dates it to circa 1650-2. Like Ostade's other etchings of single peasant heads, this was possibly inspired by the series of 24 heads of peasants and countrywomen by Adriaen Brouwer, his fellow-pupil with Frans Hals, after Pieter Brueghel the Elder (Hollstein 230-41).

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