A Quarrel

Ca 1640. Oil on copper sheet

Adriaen van Ostade (1610–1685) was one on the most prolific country life genre painters in art history. He worked in Haarlem, an important centre of Dutch art in the 17th century. The number of works attributed to him is awe inspiring: nearly 800 paintings, 50 etchings, 404 drawings and dozens of watercolours.

“A Quarrel” is stylistically typical of the artist’s paintings from the first half of the 1640s, which are appreciated for their Rembrandtesque chiaroscuro. The painting on copper sheet is signed A. v. Ostade; the signature in the lower left corner is not visible to the naked eye as it is under a darkened layer of varnish. Despite the signature, the high level of craftsmanship and the expensive ground material, there is reason to believe that the painting was not made by Adriaen van Ostade himself. The figures suggest the handwriting of Isack van Ostade (1621–1649), who studied and worked in his older brother’s studio in the first half of the 1640s and painted small tavern scenes that had the greatest demand among Adriaen van Ostade’s works at the time.