Travellers at Rest

1671

Object data

oil on panel

support: height 36.9 cm × width 30.3 cm

Inscriptions

signature and date, bottom left: Av. Ostade . 1671

Technical notes

Support The single, vertically grained oak plank is approx. 0.8 cm thick. It includes a strip of lighter sapwood (approx. 2 cm) on the left. The reverse is not bevelled, although the edges were slightly thinned, and has regularly spaced saw marks. Dendrochronology has shown that the youngest heartwood ring was formed in 1648. The panel could have been ready for use by 1664, but a date in or after 1667 is more likely.
Preparatory layers The thin double ground extends up to the edges of the support. The first, ochre-white layer consists of large white and small black and ochre-coloured pigment particles, as well as a minute amount of blue pigment. The second, light brown ground contains large white, fine red and yellow, and some very fine black pigment particles.
Underdrawing No underdrawing could be detected with the naked eye or infrared photography.
Paint layers The paint extends up to the edges of the support. The semi-transparent brown first lay-in is partially visible in thinly executed areas, most notably the dilapidated wooden fence on the left. The composition was carefully built up from dark to light, leaving the three main figures in reserve. Most of the large tree in the foreground was applied over the sky; a few small blue dots were later added in its top to create the illusion of the sky showing through the leaves. A cross-section taken from the light blue sky, which consists of small white with an addition of small blue pigment particles, shows that it was applied in one layer on top of the ground. Infrared photography revealed several compositional changes, for instance the hand of the man on the left holding a jug was larger at first and a stool, not included in the final painting, was originally planned in the lower right corner. The paint surface is fairly smooth, with only some visible brushstrokes and impasto in the foliage.
Anna Krekeler, 2022

Scientific examination and reports

paint samples: A. Krekeler, RMA, nos. SK-A-299/1-2, 3 July 2008
technical report: A. Krekeler, RMA, 3 July 2008
infrared photography: A. Krekeler, RMA, 29 August 2008
dendrochronology: P. Klein, RMA, 27 September 2013

Condition

Good. The panel has some woodworm damage, especially in the sapwood, but is stable. A slight irregularity in the grain of the wood, due to a knot, is visible beside the right knee of the man sitting on the left. There is an old, small, restored crack in the paint layer along the lower right edge. Some areas, especially the sleeves of the standing woman, show a whitish crust locally.

Conservation

W.A. Hopman, 1874: copaiba balsam applied; varnish regenerated
O. van Maanen, 2005: complete restoration

Provenance

...; ? collection Hendrik van Heteren (1672-1749), The Hague;¹ his son, Adriaan Leonard van Heteren (1724-1800), The Hague (‘Een stuk, zynde drinkende en rokende boeren, en boerinnen, die van de jagt afkoomen, met haar geweer en wilt, door Adriaan van Ostade. h. 14 en drie agste d., br. 12 d. [37 x 31 cm] P.’);² his third cousin and godson, Adriaan Leonard van Heteren Gevers (1794-1866), Rotterdam (‘Adrien van Ostade. Devant la quelle on voit plusieurs fermiers assis devant la maison, paraissant rire et causer. Tableau estimé l’un des meilleurs de ce Maître (bois, h. 14 l. 11½ [36 x 28.5 cm].’);³ from whom, with 136 other paintings (known as ‘Kabinet van Heteren Gevers’), fl. 100,000, to the museum, by decree of Louis Napoleon, King of Holland, and through the mediation of his father, Dirk Cornelis Gevers (1763-1839), 8 June 1809⁴

Object number: SK-A-299

The artist

Adriaen van Ostade (Haarlem 1610 - Haarlem 1685)

Adriaen van Ostade was the fifth child of the weaver Jan Hendricx van Ostade and Janneke Hendricx. He was baptized in the Reformed Church in Haarlem on 19 December 1610. According to Houbraken, whose information may not be reliable, he was a pupil of Frans Hals at the same time as Adriaen Brouwer. While Hals left no discernable imprint on his oeuvre, the influence of Brouwer, who lived in Haarlem from 1623/24 to 1631/32, is very apparent in Van Ostade’s early work. His activity as an artist is documented only in 1632, when he had already reached the age of 22. Peasants Playing Cards from a year later is Van Ostade’s earliest signed and dated picture.⁵ He first appears on the Guild of St Luke’s contribution list in 1634. On 30 March 1640, in settlement of a debt to Salomon van Ruysdael, the Court of Petty Sessions ordered him to pay three days’ worth of board at a guilder a day and to spend five hours producing a painting with a value of seven guilders. It is not known whether Adriaen van Ostade himself had lived in Van Ruysdael’s house and received instruction from him.

Van Ostade married twice, first to Machteltje Pietersdr, who was a Catholic, so he probably converted to her religion at the time of their wedding in 1638. Fifteen years after Machteltje’s death in 1642, Anna Ingels became his wife, a scion of a prominent Amsterdam Catholic family. The painter spent his entire life in his native city and appears to have been relatively well-off. In 1647 and 1662, he served as warden of the Guild of St Luke, and in 1662-63 as dean. From 1633 to 1669 he was a member of the third platoon of the second company of the St George Civic Guard. Living to the age of 74, Van Ostade had a long and productive career. He was interred in the family grave in the Grote Kerk in Haarlem on 2 May 1685.

Several hundred paintings by Adriaen van Ostade have survived, mostly depictions of peasant life but also a few landscapes, biblical scenes and portraits. More than 400 drawings, including over 50 detailed watercolours executed in the period 1672-84, have been preserved. A renowned printmaker in his own day, 50 of his etchings have come down to us. The Haarlem landscape artist Evert Adriaensz Oudendijck is recorded as his apprentice in 1663. According to Houbraken, Van Ostade’s younger brother Isack (1621-1649) was also his pupil, as were Jan Steen (1626-1679), Cornelis Bega (c. 1631-1664), Michiel van Musscher (1645-1705) and Cornelis Dusart (1660-1704). Van Gool also mentions that Willem Doudyns (1630-1697) trained with him.

Jonathan Bikker, 2022

References
C. de Bie, Het gulden cabinet van de edel vrij schilder const, inhoudende den lof vande vermarste schilders, architecte, beldthowers ende plaetsnijders van deze eeuw, Antwerp 1662, p. 258; A. Houbraken, De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen, I, Amsterdam 1718, pp. 347-49; J. van Gool, De nieuwe Schouburg der Nederlantsche kunstschilders en schilderessen: Waer in de levens- en kunstbedryven er tans levende en reets overleedene schilders, die van Houbraken, noch eenig ander schryver, zyn aengeteekend, verhaelt worden, I, The Hague 1750, p. 359; A.P. van der Willigen, Geschiedkundige aanteekeningen over Haarlemsche schilders en andere beoefenaren van de beeldende kunsten, voorafgegaan door eene korte geschiedenis van het schilders- of St. Lucas Gilde aldaar, Haarlem 1866, pp. 170-74; Fritz in U. Thieme and F. Becker (eds.), Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, XXVI, Leipzig 1932, pp. 74-75; A. Bredius, ‘Een en ander over Adriaen van Ostade’, Oud Holland 56 (1939), pp. 241-47; H. Miedema, De archiefbescheiden van het St. Lucasgilde te Haarlem, 1497-1798, 2 vols., Alphen aan den Rijn 1980, passim; B. Schnackenburg, Adriaen van Ostade, Isack van Ostade: Zeichnungen und Aquarelle: Gesamtdarstellung mit Werkkatalogen, I, Hamburg 1981, pp. 28-33, 36-47; Schnackenburg in J. Turner (ed.), The Dictionary of Art, XXIII, New York 1996, pp. 609-12; I. van Thiel-Stroman, ‘Biographies 15th-17th Century’, in P. Biesboer et al., Painting in Haarlem 1500-1850: The Collection of the Frans Hals Museum, coll. cat. Haarlem 2006, pp. 99-363, esp. pp. 258-60; A. Ebert, Adriaen van Ostade und die komische Malerei des 17. Jahrhunderts, Berlin 2013, pp. 19-22; Seelig in Saur Allgemeines Künstlerlexikon: Die Bildenden Künstler aller Zeiten und Völker, XCIII, Munich/Leipzig 2017, pp. 528-30

Entry

The nineteenth-century French critic Théophile Thoré remarked with astonishment when he saw Adriaen van Ostade’s Travellers at Rest in the Rijksmuseum: ‘The painter was already 61 years old but one can hardly see it’.⁶ His admiration was shared by Hofstede de Groot, who considered the 1671 work ‘one of the best paintings from the last period’.⁷

Van Ostade depicted outdoor scenes throughout his long career. The earliest one, Peasants Slaughtering a Pig by Torchlight, is dated 1637,⁸ and the first of peasants relaxing outside an inn is from 1640.⁹ However, there are more open-air compositions by him from the 1670s than from any other decade, and the country inn, in particular, was a preferred theme, not only for his paintings but also for the watercolours he produced from 1672 onwards.

The large scale of the figures in Travellers at Rest sets it apart from all of Van Ostade’s other pictures of country inns. Those in the paintings from the 1670s are generally taller than in the earlier works, but in none of the outdoor scenes in this genre is there such a concentration on the foreground figures. That is given added emphasis by the caesura created by the bench and the significantly smaller size of the company in the background. The two men in the foreground also differ from the typical peasant guests that feature in such depictions by Van Ostade. The one smoking a pipe on the right is obviously a hunter, for his gun is resting against the bench beside him. Judging from the case with a strap on the table the other is probably a travelling salesman. The spectacles peddler in a few drawings by Van Ostade carries his wares in a similar box hung around his neck.¹⁰

The diagonal composition of the Rijksmuseum scene was one that Van Ostade preferred in the 1670s, and he employed it most dramatically a year later in his 1672 painting of a fishmonger.¹¹ The use of bright primary colours in Travellers at Rest is also typical of Van Ostade’s work in this period.¹² Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the present picture is the sophisticated use of light and shade. While the hunter and the background figures are fully lit, the arbour in the foreground casts a shadow over the tavern hostess, most of the salesman and half of the still life on the table. The slanting direction of the shadow is opposite to the main compositional diagonal. One can readily imagine that it was this subtle play of light and shade, in particular, that impressed Thoré and Hofstede de Groot.

Jonathan Bikker, 2022

See Key to abbreviations, Rijksmuseum painting catalogues and Acknowledgements

Literature

J. Smith, A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch, Flemish and French Painters, I, London 1829, p. 165, no. 206; ibid, IX, 1842, p. 110, no. 106; C. Hofstede de Groot, Beschreibendes und kritisches Verzeichnis der Werke der hervorragendsten holländischen Maler des XVII. Jahrhunderts, III, Esslingen/Paris 1910, pp. 386-87, no. 778

Collection catalogues

1809, p. 52, no. 226; 1843, p. 44, no. 254 (‘in good condition’); 1853, p. 21, no. 204 (fl. 2,000); 1857, p. 103, no. 228; 1880, p. 238, no. 261; 1887, p. 128, no. 1071; 1903, p. 202, no. 1818; 1934, p. 216, no. 1818; 1960, p. 234, no. 1818; 1976, p. 430, no. A 299

Citation

Jonathan Bikker, 2022, 'Adriaen van Ostade, Travellers at Rest, 1671', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.4901

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