Adriaen van Ostade

Johan Hendrik, Graaf van Wassenaer Obdam (1683-1745), The Hague;
By inheritance to his brother, Unico Willem, Graaf van Wassenaer Obdam (1692-1766), Delden, The Hague;
His deceased sale, Amsterdam, 25 October 1769 and days following, lot 2;
Etienne-François, Comte de Stainville, Duc de Choiseul (1719-1785), Paris;
His sale, Paris, 6 April 1772, lot 43 ("les accessoires de toute la chambre ornent beaucoup ce tableau, dont la composition & l'exécution sont très-agréables"), for 3,000 livres, to Accart;
Louis-François de Bourbon, Prince de Conti (1717-1776), Paris;
His sale Paris, 24 April, 1777, lot 309 ("ce tableau est encore d'un grand mérite, son effet est tranquille, & la fonte de couleur belle"), for 3,600 livres, to Pierre Remy;
On behalf of Nicolas Beaujon (1718-1786), Paris;
His deceased sale Paris, 25 April 1787, lot 43, for 3,000 livres, to Pierre-François Basan, for 3,000 livres;
Alexander Baring, 1^st Baron Ashburton (1774-1848), London, by 1829;
Thence by descent to Alexander Hugh Baring, 4th Baron Ashburton (1835-1930), the Grange, before 1854;
By whom sold in August 1907 with his collection to a consortium (including Thomas Agnew & Sons; Arthur J. Sulley & Co., London; and Asher Wertheimer, London);
Sir George Donaldson (1845-1925), London, by 1910;
With Dowdeswell and Dowdeswell, London;
Marcus Kappel (1839-1919), Berlin;
By whose beneficiaries sold Berlin, Cassirer and Helbing, 25 November, 1930, lot 14;
Possibly Jules Roos, Ontario;
With Thomas Agnew & Sons, London;
From whom purchased by the family of the present owner in 1975.

London, British Institution, Old Masters, 1819, no. 14;
London, Royal Academy, Winter Exhibition, 1890, no. 111;
Berlin, Königlichen Akademie der Künste. Ausstellung von Werken alter Kunst : aus dem Privatbesitz von Mitgliedern des Kaiser Friedrich-Museums-Vereins, 1914, no 116

G. Hoet, Catalogus of Naamlyst van Schilderyen, met Derzelver Pryzen, vol. II, The Hague 1752, p. 401, ("Een Boer en Boerinnen by den Haert, en drie Kinderen");
J. Smith,  A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch, Flemish and French Painters, part I, London 1826, p. 125, no. 64 ("This exquisite little bijoux is at present worth 450 gs")
C. Blanc, Le Trésor de la Curiosité, Paris 1857, vol I, p. 194;
G. Waagen, Treasures of Art in Great Britain, London 1854, vol. II, p. 107, no. 5;
C. Hofstede de Groot, A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch Painters of the Seventeenth Century, vol III, London 1910, pp. 282-283, cat. no. 462;
W. von Bode, Die Gemäldesammlung Marcus Kappel in Berlin, Berlin 1914, cat. no. 19 ("Das Bild, das sich in den bekanntesten Sammlungen des 18. u. 19. Jahrhunderts befand, gehört zu den besten Werken des A. von Ostade"), reproduced.

The following condition report has been provided by Simon Parkes of Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc. 502 East 74th St. New York, NY 212-734-3920, simonparkes@msn.com, an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. This work is in beautiful condition. If the varnish were slightly freshened, the painting could be hung as is. It is painted on a single piece of unreinforced oak; the panel is flat and the paint layer is stable. There are only a few small retouches beneath the hands of the male figure on the right and perhaps some in the curtain around the top of the fireplace and in the hood over the fire in the upper right corner. The retouches may be slightly discolored, but the condition throughout is very good.
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

Engraved:
Engraved by P.A. Dunker for the Galérie Choiseul, 1730.

The gentle restraint of A Peasant Family in a Cottage after a Meal exemplifies Ostade’s paintings from the mid-1650s and 1660s, when he was at the height of his powers. Although famous throughout his career for his depictions of farmers and peasants, it was only around mid-century that Ostade created refined panels such as this, with its meticulous brushwork, rich coloring and sense of tranquility.  Throughout its distinguished history, this small panel has been prized by generations of collectors and connoisseurs from the 18^thcentury until the present day.    

Ostade sets A Peasant Family in a Cottage after a Meal in a high-ceilinged room with an open hearth, a large mullioned window and a staircase presumably leading to an attic.  The room, though modestly furnished and littered with broken pottery, household utensils and a few twigs, seems unexpectedly spacious for a peasant’s cottage.  The inhabitants project a similar sense of comfort and ease:  the parents sitting quietly near the fire, relaxing after their meal, and the children happily engaged with each other on the other side of the room.  The figures are sturdy and their features, though unrefined, project an engaging openness.  Ostade lavishes the figures and their surroundings with equal attention, giving weight and substance to the folds of the mother's head-cloth and delicately picking out the individual strands of flax on the wheel at the left.  He uses light to tie it all together, constructing a pattern of bright highlights that progresses across the room, from the boy's cap at the window to the candle by the hearth; and transforming the daylight pouring through the window into a more muted glow that pervades the interior, creating this sense of tranquility.  There are two known drawings related to the painting, both figure studies:  A Seated Peasant with Fire Tongs in the Kunsthalle, Hamburg, and A Little Girl in a High Chair, from the collection of J.Q. van Regteren-Altena, Amsterdam (fig. 1).¹  Both are boldly drawn in charcoal or black chalk on blue paper and heighted with white, as was usual for Ostade during this period.    

In terms of both style and technique, A Peasant Family in a Cottage after a Meal is markedly different from Ostade’s earliest compositions, which are, for the most part, brightly painted scenes of carousing peasants – small wildly gesticulating figures generally behaving rather badly.  Those pictures strongly reflect the influence of Adriaen Brouwer, who, according to Houbraken, worked together with Ostade in Frans Hals’s studio.  It was not until the 1650s that Ostade began depicting peasants and tradesmen as respectable people rather than rustic caricatures. There are various theories to account for Ostade’s change in viewpoint, but Wayne Franits convincingly argues that the artist’s new approach was the result of a change in the culture at large resulting in the desire for a general code of civility.²  To greatly simplify his thesis:  the upper classes wanted to believe that everyone in society was well-behaved and wished to decorate their houses with paintings that illustrated such behavior rather than with images of drunkeness and riotous living.  Thus Ostade shows his peasants the same respect that Ochtervelt and ter Borch  lavished on their elegant subjects, though the settings and clothing are worlds apart.

Ostade returned to this theme throughout the 1660s and 1670s, but in terms of  composition and subject the closest parallel to the present work is A Peasant Family in a Cottage Interior (fig. 2), Sotheby’s, London, 7 July 2005, lot 18, also dated 1661 and of about the same size (34.9 by 31 cm).  These two paintings, while not precisely a pair, are companion pieces and were listed sequentially in the early literature.  In 1752 they are both recorded by Hoet as being in the collection of  “den Hoog Ed. Heere Grave van Wassenaar &xc. &c.&c....³  Johan Hendrik Graaf van Wassenaer Obdam, came from a distinguished and powerful Dutch family and was himself a member of the Estates General and the Council of State.  He died in 1745, but the bulk of his collection was not sold until 1750.  Neither painting was included in the auction but apparently went instead to his younger brother, Unico Willem, a diplomat and composer.  In 1769, three years after Unico's death, the pictures were included as consecutive lots in the sale of the remainder of the paintings, which, somewhat curiously, was still referred to as the collection of Johan Hendrik. This may have been the result of Unico's astonishing modesty.  He composed the Concerti Armonici, six works long thought to have been by Ricciotti or Pergolesi.  It was only in 1980 when a Dutch musicologist going through the Wassenaer family documents, discovered the original score and Unico Willem's letter to the publisher, that the pieces could be correctly attributed.  

Both paintings then passed to France, where Dutch 17^th century cabinet pictures were enormously popular.  They were acquired by the Duc de Choiseul, Minister of War and Foreign Affairs to Louis XV, and were engraved for the Galérie Choiseul, an extraordinarily lavish volume documenting this celebrated collection.  As the Galérie Choiseul was published in 1770, it seems likely that Choiseul either purchased the present work directly from the Wassenaer sale of the previous year, or had someone purchase it on his behalf.  However, the London picture was not included in the Choiseul auction  in 1772.⁴  The next owner was the Prince de Conti, another important figure at the court of Louis XV, who even attempted to have himself elected King of Poland.  

The picture next went to Nicolas Beaujon, banker to Louis XV, who used part of his enormous fortune to form a collection of mainly Dutch 17^th century and French 18^th century art.  It was purchased in Beaujon's deceased sale by P.F. Basan, a print-maker and dealer, who is perhaps best known today for his retouching of Rembrandt’s etching plates to hide the wear and make the prints more saleable.  The painting is next recorded as in the collection of Alexander Baring, 1^st Baron Ashburton and scion of the famous English banking family.  It remained in the family until the early 20^th century.  It was subsequently acquired by Sir George Donaldson, a dealer and collector, who had strong ties to the Victoria and Albert Museum and later by Marcus Kappel, one of a group of astute Berlin collectors advised by Wilhelm von Bode in the 1920s.  Since 1975, it has been in the family of the present owners.  

1.  See Schnackenburg, vol. I, pp. 112-113, cat. nos. 166 and 167, respectively.  Ostade used the first drawing again in reverse for his 1767 painting of ??, now in the Hermitage, Leningrad.
2.  W. Franits, Dutch Seventeenth-Century Genre Painting:  Its Style and Thematic Evolution, New Haven and London 2004, pp.  135-139. See also W. Franits, “
3. Hoet, op.cit.
4.  Lot 43 in the Choiseul sale has in the past been erroneously identified with the London painting.  However, the description reads in part, "un troisiéme [enfan] est assis dans une petite chaise" (a third [child] is sitting in a little chair).  As the third child in the London picture is standing before its mother and here is sitting in a high chair by the window, the Choiseul picture must be the present work.  The same is true for lot 309 in the Conti sale.