PIETER DE BLOOT | PEASANTS DRINKING AND SMOKING IN AN INTERIOR

C.P.A. & G.R. Castendijk, Rotterdam, by 1989;

With Drs. Salomon Lilian, Amsterdam, by 1997;

Charles Roelofsz, Amsterdam, 1999,

From whom acquired by a private collector, Washington, D.C.;

From whom acquired. 

Tableau, XII, no. 1, September 1989, in an advertisement for C.P.A. & G.R. Castendijk,

Rotterdam, for the Fine Art and Antiques Fair, Prinsenhof Museum, Delft;

R. James, “Pieter de Bloot, Boereninterieur, ca. 1635-1640” in Rotterdamse Meesters

uit de Gouden Eeuw, Historisch Museum, Rotterdam, Waanders Uitgevers, Zwolle, 1994,

pp. 170-171, 206, cat. no. 7, illustrated twice;

S. Lilian, “Pieter de Bloot” in Old Master Paintings, 1997, p. 12- 13, illustrated.

"This peasant family is engaging in different vices—drinking, smoking, and eating—and is amusing even if they are meant to warn the viewer against excess. Despite the “lowlife” subject, De Bloot has painted certain elements of the composition with great sensitivity, like the exhaled smoke from the rightmost man"

Molly Harrington

Pieter de Bloot lived all his life in Rotterdam. He earned a reputation as a painter of

tavern scenes and quarreling peasants. De Bloot appears to have been strongly influenced by Adriaen Brouwer (1605 – 1638) and David Teniers the Younger (1610 – 1690). De Bloot’s genre paintings of common townsfolk remain, however, distinctly Dutch, particularly in the execution of the faces. Also characteristic of de Bloot, as demonstrated in this work, are the still-life elements that he puts in his interiors. He also painted religious scenes as well as a few landscapes. Works by the artist can be found in the museums of: Amsterdam; Brussels; Cambridge, U.S.; Cambridge, U.K.; Florence; Greenwich, U.K.; The Hague; London; Paris; Philadelphia; Prague; Rotterdam; Saint Petersburg; Utrecht; Vienna; and Wuppertal. De Bloot rarely dated his works. When the present panel was shown in the 1994 exhibition in Rotterdam, the date of execution was fixed as circa 1635-1640, at which point there is a further notable influence by Herman and Cornelis Saftleven. What is most striking in this work is the soft coloration imbued by a subtle interplay of light and shadow. Around a table near a fireplace, three men and a woman with a child are thoroughly enjoying themselves while drinking and smoking. A fourth man to their left watches the revelry while also indulging. Simple household items are scattered throughout, with perhaps such items as the broken jar, idle broom, and discarded mussel shells scattered on the floor intended as a warning sign against sloth.