Tavern Scene

early 1660s

Adriaen van Ostade

Artist, Dutch, 1610 - 1685

Fourteen men gather around two tables in a dim tavern in this vertical painting. More men sit around a high, broad chimney, and another person, perhaps a boy, moves a basket the size of a laundry hamper in the lower right corner of the painting. The people all have pale, peachy skin, and they all wear hats. Their hats, jackets, and trousers are painted in shades of brick red, muted blue, gray, or brown with a few touches of brighter white at some of their collars. Several hold or smoke long-stemmed white pipes. The table closer to us is in the center of the composition, with one narrow end angling into the lower left corner. Five men sit on benches or ladder-back wood chairs around that table, playing cards or looking on. Another man on the far side of the table stands and leans on a forearm against the chair back of one of the players. The final man at this table stands on our side with his back to us. He holds a pewter pitcher in one hand, and that arm blocks the light source, presumably a candle. Five more men huddle around a table placed under a window on the far wall of the tavern, to our right. A man sitting with his back to us hides that candleflame as well, but the glow lights the men’s faces. The moon shines in through a second window above the first. A pair of men talk together at the far side of the fireplace. A single candle burns on the front center of the chimney, which is higher than the men would be if standing up straight. The corners of the room fall into shadow. Two logs, the broken stem of a white clay pipe, and a piece of curving wood lie on the ground near the boy with the basket. The artist signed the painting in the lower left corner, “Av Ostade” with an incomplete date, “166.”

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Adriaen van Ostade devoted himself to the depiction of the daily lives of common people. He initially produced images that were far from flattering, showing raucous peasants in rickety barns, but over the course of his career the scenes became less like caricatures to reveal a more realistic view of rural life. This evolving subtlety is evident as well in Van Ostade’s painting technique, notably in his use of light and dark. Here, the tavern interior is in good repair, the building substantial, the fireplace spacious, and the leaded windows without a broken pane. In the common room of a tavern a group of men is playing cards while they share a pitcher of beer and smoke their clay pipes. A boy is leaving for the woodshed to refill the empty basket. In the background a second group seems to be discussing the document on the table, a visible reminder that in the seventeenth century taverns not only served as inns, restaurants, and bars, but also were used extensively to conduct business.

Adriaen van Ostade, older brother to Isack (1621–1649), was a remarkably prolific artist. His known works include more than eight hundred paintings, about fifty etchings, and numerous drawings, and the ample production provided a substantial income. A well-respected artist, Van Ostade was active in the administration of Haarlem’s Saint Luke’s Guild, and he influenced the work of several other Dutch genre painters.


Artwork overview

  • Medium

    oil on panel

  • Credit Line

    Gift of John Russell Mason

  • Dimensions

    overall: 23.8 x 20.4 cm (9 3/8 x 8 1/16 in.)
    framed: 30.1 x 26.3 x 4.7 cm (11 7/8 x 10 3/8 x 1 7/8 in.)

  • Accession

    1977.21.1

More About this Artwork


Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Probably private collection, Belgium; purchased c. 1930 in Europe by Mrs. Edwin M. Watson [d. 1971, née Frances Nash], Washington, D.C., and Charlottesville, VA; by inheritance to her niece and nephew, Ellen V. Nash [d. 1993] and Edward Nash, Charlottesville, VA; by gift to John Russell Mason [1900-1981], Washington, D.C.;[1] gift 1977 to NGA.
[1] The provenance information was provided by Mr. Mason in his letter of 29 March 1977 to J. Carter Brown (copy in NGA curatorial files).

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1997

  • Rembrandt and the Golden Age: Dutch Paintings from the National Gallery of Art, The Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, 1997, unnumbered brochure.

Bibliography

1985

  • National Gallery of Art. European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. Washington, 1985: 295, repro.

1995

  • Wheelock, Arthur K., Jr. Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, 1995: 185-187, color repro. 186.

Inscriptions

lower left: Av Ostade / 166[?]

Wikidata ID

Q20177560


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