Bust of a peasant.

Adriaen van Ostade (1610-85) was a major Dutch Golden Age artist. He probably trained in Frans Hals's Haarlem workshop, where the subject matter of fellow student Adriaen Brouwer, master of delicately painted boors carousing, determined Van Ostade's own themes. In his early work, Van Ostade depicted scenes of peasants engaged in debauchery using Rembrandt's forceful chiaroscuro. Later, he portrayed calmer, more respectable people in comfortable interiors with carefully structured spaces and picturesque clutter. By then, both he and the Netherlands had become more prosperous. An extremely prolific artist, Van Ostade produced hundreds of paintings; over 800 survive. He also painted portraits and still lifes and added figures to paintings by Pieter Saenredam, Jacob van Ruisdael, and others. Van Ostade's watercolors, about half of which were made after 1670, were attempts to duplicate the effect of his oil paintings through watercolor and were in much demand. His students included his considerably younger brother Isaack and Jan Steen.  

After Rembrandt, Van Ostade was the major Dutch printmaker of his day, producing 50 recorded etchings, and is well represented in Te Papa's collection. His prints were highly regarded by his contemporaries and remained enduringly popular long after his death and went through a number of editions.

This tiny but powerful etching shows an elderly peasant, almost certainly female, wearing a headscarf. The work retains the raucous, earthy qualities of the early work of Ostade, who was influenced here by his slightly elder contemporary, Brouwer. The rough vigour of the print's execution matches the subject admirably and it is a good example of the popular Dutch sub-genre of the tronie, or character study. Previously thought to date from c. 1636, it is now believed to date from mid-century, as Brouwer only took up etching in the late 1640s. Our impression is from the fifth and final state, and was donated to the Colonial Museum by the Danish politician, bishop, collector and political refugee, Ditlev Monrad, in 1869, forming part of Te Papa's foundation art collection. A companion piece to this etching is A laughing peasant (Te Papa 1869-0001-353).

See: The J. Paul Getty Museum, 'Adriaen van Ostade',  http://www.getty.edu/art/collection/artists/460/adriaen-van-ostade-dutch-1610-1685/

Dr Mark Stocker    Curator, Historical International Art        March 2019