Abraham Diepraam

Sale, A.L., Rotterdam, August 1738;

Where acquired by Willem Lormier (1682-1758), The Hague;

His posthumous sale, The Hague, Francken, 4 July 1763, lot 78 (142 florins to Van Houten);

Count Frederick Christian Moltke, Copenhagen;

His sale, V. Winkel & Magnussen, Copenhagen, 1-2 June 1931, lot 27 (D. Kr. 5,600).

Anonymous sale, London, Christie's, 14 May 1965, lot 83 (38 gns., to Hoogstedger)

Probably with Hoogsteder & Hoogsteder, The Hague;

With Otto Naumann, Ltd., New York, by 1995;

From whom acquired by the present collector. 

G. Hoet, Catalogus of naamlyst van schilderyen, The Hague, 1752, II, p. 422;

Catalogus van Schilderyen van den Heer Agent Willem Lormier, The Hague, 1752, p. 8, no. 77;

Catalogue des tableaux de la Collection du comte de Moltke, Copenhagen, 1913, no. 49, p. 28;

E. Bénézit, Dictionary of artists, Paris, 1966, III, p. 260;

P. Sutton, Masters of seventeenth-century Dutch genre painting, exhibition catalogue, Philadelphia 1984, under no. 30, p. 180, note 4;

E. Korthals Altes, "The Eighteenth-Century Gentleman Dealer Willem Lormier and the International Dispersal of Seventeenth-Century Dutch Paintings," in Simiolus, vol. XXVIII, no. 4, 2000-2001, p. 262, note 42.

New York, Otto Naumann, Ltd., Inaugural Exhibition of Old Master Paintings, 12 January-1 March 1995, under "1984."

Masterful brushwork, fluid yet controlled, characterizes this spirited painting on panel by seventeenth century Rotterdam artist Abraham van Diepraam. The lively handling brings energy to the scene and enhances his subject, the boorish inhabitants of a crowded, rough-and-tumble inn. This painting, which is primarily made up of brown and yellow tones, depicts figures gathered around a large hearth, playing games and drinking. The interior includes a trio at left leaning over a game of tric-trac. Two men stand over the game, grimacing as they watch the younger, seated man make his move on the board. Behind them, a man embraces a woman. His baldness and large hood suggest that he may be a monk, adding to the inn's air of impropriety. Closer to the foreground, a man holding a large pewter tankard and glass stands behind a table loaded with a pipe, playing cards and half-eaten bread. He grins broadly, the red of his jauntily tilted cap matching his nose, suggesting that he has imbibed much of the tankard's contents. His outward stare and extended arm holding a glass invite the viewer to join the merrymaking. Yet the man behind him may give us pause, as he stands urinating over a barrel, holding a pipe behind his back with a raised eyebrow and sly, conspiratorial smile. Sleeping through this commotion is a small dog lying on the floor at center.

Little is known for certain about this prodigiously gifted artist's life. Surviving documents indicate that a painter "Arent" Diepraam was born in 1622 in Dordrecht and died in that same city in 1670. This individual is likely identifiable as the Abraham Diepraam whose life is recounted by biographer Arnold Houbraken (A. Houbraken, Groote Schouburgh, Amsterdam, 1719-1721, I, PP. 244-247, 249). According to Houbraken, Diepraam studied with the glass painter H.P. Stoop in Utrecht and Hendrick Sorgh in Rotterdam. Houbraken also mentions a sojourn to France and a membership in the Guild of Saint Luke in Dordrecht, and notes that another of Diepraam's teachers was the consummate painter of peasant scenes, Adriaen Brouwer (1605-1638), going so far as to assert that some works of Diepraam 'were so beautifully painted and so witty in invention that they might have been done by Brouwer (Trans. from Sutton, loc. cit.). Diepraam's paintings were much sought after by his contemporaries: a surviving inventory from 1688 of the collection of Aert Teggers, a major collector in Dordrecht, lists seven pictures by him (J. Loughman, 'Aert Teggers, a seventeenth-century Dordrecht collector', in The Burlington Magazine, XXXIII, no. 1061, August 1991, pp. 532-537).

Like Brouwer, Diepraam specialized in depicting peasants carousing. Fascinated by facial expressions, he produced several pictures depicting single male figures smoking, drinking, and eating, such as A peasant seated and smoking in the National Gallery, London (inv. NG3534). With a palette similar to the present work, the London painting includes a nearly identical 17th-century Rhenish stoneware jug and the same motif of the rag hanging on the back wall. Another comparable work is in the collection of the Rijksmuseum (inv. SK-A-1574). Diepraam may have been familiar with such scenes in his daily life, for Houbraken recounts that at the end of his life he was a poverty-stricken alcoholic who died in a hospital.

In the 18th century, this painting was part of the impressive collection of Willem Lormier (1682-1758) in The Hague, which included canonical works such as Gerand ter Borch Il's Paternal Admonition in the Rijksmuseum (inv. SK-A-404) and Rembrandt's Holy Family with a curtain in the Schloss Wilhelmshöhe, Kassel (inv. GK 240).