The family.

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.

The family is often known by its alternative title, Peasant family in a Cottage. It  is almost certainly one of Van Ostade's early etchings, dating from shortly after he took up the medium, probably in 1647. It is an important work, as it marks a move away from his humorously, even satirical earlier depictions of the Dutch peasantry towards an increasingly sympathetic portrayal of domesticity, with the family of the title grouped around the hearth. This is especially evident in the figure of the mother, who is somewhat Madonna-like. A related painting, dated 1660, is in the Nationalmuseum, Stockholm. This impression is from the sixth of final state; it was presented to the Colonial Museum, forerunner of Te Papa, by Bishop Ditlev Monrad in 1869.

Sources:

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

Web Gallery of Art (WGA), 'Ostade, Adriaen Jansz. van... Peasant Family by a Hearth', https://www.wga.hu/html_m/o/ostade/adriaen/1/p_heart.html

Dr Mark Stocker    Curator, Historical International Art    March 2019