Adriaen van Ostade (Haarlem 1610-Haarlem 1685)
The Interior of a Peasant's Cottage Signed and dated 1668
Oil on panel | 49.0 x 41.2 cm (support, canvas/panel/stretcher external) | RCIN 404814
This is a depiction of a happy humble home (or possibly tavern), graced with modest plenty and model parenting. The figures have the slightly cartoonish character of a seventeenth-century Dutch Simpsons family. Ostade likes clutter – in the number of objects he can include and the number of variations he can introduce into the simplest surface.
