Adriaen Jansz. van Ostade Haarlem 1610 - 1685

bidding is closed

Description

Adriaen jansz. van Ostade
peasants fighting in an inn
bears unidentified collector's or dealer's numbering in red chalk, verso: N: 5-H/B M (?)
pen and brown ink and wash over black chalk, within black ink framing lines
Inv.nr. N 196

Provenance

Benjamin West (L.419);
Anonymous sale, Paris, Hôtel Drouot, 12 December 1966, lot 41, reproduced;
Acquired from the Paris trade in 1969

Exhibited

Amsterdam/Dordrecht 1994-5, cat. no. 11

Literature

B. Schnackenburg, Adriaen van Ostade; Isack van Ostade; Zeichnungen und Aquarelle, 2 vols., Hamburg 1981, vol. I, pp. 39, 57, 84, cat. no. 21; reproduced vol. II, plate 12;
C. Dumas, "De Unicorno Collectie", in RKD Bulletin, 1994, no. 2, reproduced p. 17

Catalogue Note

As Dr. Schnackenburg has described (loc. cit.), this dramatic, freely executed drawing is amongst those in which Ostade's stylistic debt to Adriaen Brouwer is at its most striking: both in subject and in handling, a clear comparison can be made with drawings by Brouwer such as the two sketchbook sheets of knife fights, in Besançon (see Schnackenburg, op.cit., vol. I , p. 254, figs. 13-14). In fact, Ostade's very earliest drawings, which are rather less angular, show little influence of Brouwer, but this changes during the second half of the 1630s and for a little while around 1637 there is, as in the present drawing, a very clear stylistic relationship between the two artists' works. Though Ostade's brother, Isack, continued to draw in a similarly robust and energetic manner for much of his (short) career, even by 1640 Adriaen's style had begun to move towards his increasingly precise, and ultimately rather decorative, mature manner.