Entry by
Susan Anderson,
completed November 01, 2017:
This scene of a peasant man looking out of a split door derives from Adriaen van Ostade’s etching (c. 1653) of the same subject (S5.12.1) . In an inscription on a former mount, John Witt Randall, the 19th-century American collector and previous owner of this sheet, noted the connection and likely believed that this drawing was Van Ostade’s original preparatory study for the print. However, details such as the awkward figural rendering and the tremulous lines, especially in the window panes, preclude Van Ostade’s hand and instead point to a weak, unidentified follower from the 18th century.
Van Ostade’s etching is in reverse of our drawing, as is an etched copy (R13216) by British printmaker David Deuchar (1743–1808). An anonymous etched copy is in the same orientation as our sheet, and as such may be its direct model. The hand that made our drawing expanded Van Ostade’s original composition (and that of the etched copies) slightly at the left and right edges.
Notes