Jan Miense Molenaer

Anonymous sale, Cologne, Lempertz, 5 May 1960, lot 72.

Wiesbaden, Museum Wiesbaden, 5 Sammler - 5 Meinungen, 8 April - 27 May 1973.

The painting is warmer in tone and the colours are less bright than the catalogue illustration suggests. The canvas is relined, and some minor abrasion is visible to the background. Stretcher marks are visible to the front as well as some slight frame abrasion along the edges. No damages are visible to the naked eye. Discoloured retouchings are visible in the sky and in the brown hues, e.g. the man with the beard to the extreme left, in the brown draperies of the centre figure and in the figure of the messenger. The paint surface is under a dull varnish layer. Inspection under UV-light confirms the above mentioned retouchings and reveals additional scattered spots throughout, e.g. in the architectural setting, the faces of the figures in the centre and in the costume of the soldier in the foreground, the barrel and the dog and in the suspended cockerel. The figure holding the cockerel is nicely preserved. Offered in a gilt wood frame, in fair condition, just a few chips. (JD)
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This painting by Molenaer can be dated to the early 1630s and is therefore an early work by the artist, who only became a member of the Guild of St. Luke in Haarlem in 1634.  A number of the motifs found here appear in other paintings by Molenaer from the same  period, such as the gesture of the figure in the right foreground, pointing his finger to the scene beyond. This pointing gesture is something Molenaer favoured in the early 1630s, for instance in his Dance in a Village Street, in the Rheinisches Landesmuseum, Bonn, which can be dated 1630-1.¹ 

The present work can also be closely compared to a painting sold in these Rooms, 15 November 2005, lot 88, of A Quack and his assistant advertising their wares in a village, which is also regarded as an early work. They are related not only in subject matter, both representing market squares with a large crowd watching, but also in the colour palette, and even in size. Often these market scenes were interpreted as mocking scenes of foolish peasants being tricked by quacks. In the present painting however, it seems that the news readers are handing out the news to everyone, children, peasants, soldiers, and that the only possiblity of being fooled, is through the news itself.

We are grateful to Dr. Dennis P. Weller for confirming the attribution on the basis of  a photograph.

1. See D. P. Weller, Jan Miense Molenaer. Painter of the Dutch Golden Age, exhibition catalogue, Raleigh 2002, p. 37, cat. no. 6.