JAN MIEL | A group of merry-making peasants dancing and playing music

Private collection, France;

With Galerie Sankt Lucas, Vienna, 1995, from whom acquired in 1996.

H.-J. Raupp (ed.), Niederländische Malerei des. 17. Jahrhunderts der SØR Rusche-Sammlung, vol. 2, Genre, Münster/Hamburg/London 1996, pp. 164-67, cat. no. 39, reproduced in colour;

W. Pijbes, M. Aarts, M.J. Bok et al, At Home in the Golden Age, exh. cat., Zwolle 2008, p. 74, cat. no. 58, reproduced in colour.

Rotterdam, Kunsthal, At Home in the Golden Age, 9 February – 18 May 2008, no. 58. 

The SØR Rusche Collection has been exhibited extensively over the last two decades. Please click here for further information.

Early in his career, Jan Miel made his name as one of the Bamboccianti, a group of Northern European artists active in Rome in the 1630s around Pieter van Laer (nick-named Bamboccio), who specialised in works depicting low-life scenes set in the Roman campagna. The present work appears to be a rare example from this youthful period in Miel’s career. By 1641, he was recorded in the studio of Andrea Sacchi and soon began abandoning this earlier style in favour of the more elevated subjects of history painting.