Saying grace.

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 etcher 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 etching is, not surprisingly, one of Van Ostade's most beloved works. It shows a 'deserving poor' family, content with their lot, saying grace before partaking of cooked 'pottage' or stew, no doubt with Dutch beans. All the figures, particularly the father, look plump and not in the grip of dire poverty. The shallow space emphasises the domestic intimacy and simple dignity of the scene. In her book Shifting Priorities: Gender and Genre in Seventeenth-century Dutch Painting, Nanette Salomon claims the figures look 'almost iconic. Eating has gone from an act of nurture to one of ritual, all of which is reflected in the tighter composition organized around the table.' Does this, as she suggests 'speak of the anxieties of a growing prosperity of the peasant class in the Dutch Republic'?  Probably not; surely it is a quiet celebration of this prosperity, while reminding us 'Above all to love God the Father/ Not to covet an abundance of riches'. In mood and style, it looks ahead to the Hague School realism of the 19th century, exemplified in the works of Josef Israels and the early Vincent van Gogh.

Te Papa owns two impressions of this print. This one was presented to the National Art Gallery by Sir John Ilott, while the other forms part of the Colonial Museum's foundation art collection, and was presented by Bishop Ditlev Monrad (1869-0001-368).

Sources:

Art Gallery of New South Wales, https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/works/6724.39/

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

Nanette Salomon, Shifting Priorities: Gender and Genre in Seventeenth-century Dutch Painting  (Palo Alto, CA, 2004), pp. 104-05.

Dr Mark Stocker    Curator, Historical International Art        July 2017