The peasants' quarrel.

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.

In most of Van Ostade's paintings and prints of the peasantry, they are shown merrymaking, drinking, smoking, playing music, doing their domestic duties or just conversing. Here, however, things turn a little nastier. In a plain interor, three men are involved in a violent quarrel. One the fiercest - armed with two knives - raising one of them high - has just got up from his chair, clearly enraged. His evident adversary on the right holds just one knife, with his tall hat in his other hand as an improvised shield. A third man, seated between them,  his back turned to the viewer, attempts to restrain the chief antagonist. A woman seated opposite him, flinches fearfully and protects her baby. What is the quarrel about? What are the consequences? Van Ostade provokes these questions and invites the viewer to supply the answers. An alternative title for The peasants' quarrel, favoured by the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, is The fight with knives that will inevitably and perhaps tragically ensue.

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