Adriaen Pietersz. van de Venne

Alfred Havernith;
His sale, Brussels, 10 November 1913, lot 5;
Anonymous sale, London, Christie's, 4 July 1986, lot 20;
With Otto Nauman Ltd., New York;
From whom acquired by the family of the present collector.

New York, National Academy of Design, Dutch and Flemish paintings from New York private collections, September 1988, no. 51.

E. Haverkamp-Begemann and A. Jensen Adams, Dutch and Flemish paintings from New York private collections, exhibition catalogue, New York 1988, p. 133, cat. no. 51, reproduced p. 117, fig. 51.

Single piece of wood is flat, stable, and uncradled. The varnish on this picture is slightly uneven but not disturbingly so. A few tiny scattered retouches are visible under UV, but overall the picture is in very good condition with no major damages or losses. In a carved wooden frame.
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Adriaen Pietersz. van de Venne specialized in moralizing images such as the present picture, often painted en brunaille or en grisaille.  Here, the original intended title of the painting is preserved in an inscription on the scroll, upper right, reading Fray en Leelijck, "the beautiful and the ugly"; "beauty" is likely an allusion to the music played by the pair and "ugly" a reference to their coarse and perhaps less appealing appearance.  The distinctive looking flute player seen here on the left appears again in the artist's Armoe soeckt List or "poverty leads to cunning" in which the unfortunate blind man is shown also with a wooden leg and winds a Hurdy-Gurdy; he is accompanied by a blind woman playing a rumble pot while another peasant stands on his head in the background.¹  Van de Venne's allegories often displayed a degree of spirited amusement in the treatment of their less fortunate subjects and became widely popular, with many such works becoming models for prints.  

1.  For van de Venne's Poverty leads to cunning see L.J. Bol, Adriaen Pietersz. van de Venne, painter and draughtsman, Doornspijk 1989, p. 86, fig. 76.