Adriaen van Ostade’s etching, “Village Festival under a Trellis”, c1653

Adriaen van Ostade (aka Adriaen Jansz. van Ostade) (1610–85)

“Village Festival under a Trellis” (La fête sous la treille), c1653

Note: the Institut Néerlandais, Fondation Custodia (Paris) holds a related pen drawing in brown ink over graphite with brown and grey wash that is in reverse to this etching.

The British Museum holds four different impressions of this print along with two copies (one by John Frederick Lewis and the other in reverse by David Deuchar); see: http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/search.aspx?searchText=+S.1533

Etching on fine laid paper with margins.

Size: (sheet) 14.2 x 19.8 cm; (plate) 12.9 x 17.4 cm; (image borderline) 12.6 x 17.2 cm

Inscribed: (right of centre at the lower edge) “Av. ostade”

State iv (of vii).

Note: My attribution of this impression to state iv is because the borderline in state ii (as shown in TIB) and state iii (as shown in the BM) is fractured on the upper right. This impression is closest to the strengthening of the borderline of state iv (as shown in the BM). I do not believe that it is an impression from states v or vi (as shown in Phagan) because there is strengthening to the lines above the figure entering the doorway on the far right in these later states. Be mindful, however, that my conclusion is based solely on rather poor quality reproductions in books and I do not have access to original impressions from the different states for a thorough assessment.

TIB (1978) 1 47-II (379) (Walter L Strauss & Leonard J Slatkes [Eds.] 1978, “The Illustrated Bartsch”, vol. 1, p. 358); Hollstein 47.IV; Godefroy (1994) 113

The British Museum offers the following description of this print:

“Outside an inn with a crowd of peasants watching others dancing under a vine-covered trellis, a man standing above the crowd and playing a flute and drum.”

(http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=1601943&partId=1&searchText=+S.1533&page=1)

See also the description of this print at the Rijksmuseum: http://hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.38996  and the exhibition catalogue edited by Patricia Phagan (1994), “Adrianen Van Ostade: Etchings of Peasant Life in Holland’s Golden Age”, Georgia Museum of Art, pp. 234–35.

Condition: an exceptionally rare and near faultless impression with small margins varying in width but approximately 1 cm. The sheet is in superb condition (i.e. there are no holes, folds, stains, abrasions or foxing on the recto side of the sheet but there are minor stains verso).

I am selling this museum quality etching by van Ostade—one of the most important of the masters from the Dutch Golden Age—that is also one of his masterworks, for the total cost of AU$389 (currently US$307.22/EUR260.40/GBP228.51 at the time of this listing) including postage and handling to anywhere in the world.

If you are interested in purchasing this near perfect impression of an acknowledged masterpiece of 17th century, please contact me (oz_jim@printsandprinciples.com) and I will send you a PayPal invoice to make the payment easy.

This print has been sold

This is one of van Ostade’s masterworks of etching. What makes it an important print is not only that it documents a real-life moment in a rural dance from the mid-1600s by showing how everyday farm folk “kicked up their heels”, but it also links the early tradition set by Rembrandt of capturing sparkling light and luminous shadow with the shift to exploring gritty rural narratives by artists like Jan Steen and Cornelis Bega.