Peasant Couple in a Doorway

c. 1652

Adriaen van Ostade

Associated Names
Adriaen van Ostade

Artist, Dutch, 1610 - 1685

This print depicts two people standing closely together within an arched window or doorway. The person on the right is a woman, leaning over the windowsill, her body turned towards the right. She has pale skin, arched eyebrows, a long nose, and wide lips set in a smile. She wears a white headscarf covering her hair and is dressed in a simple dress with long sleeves. On the left and partially behind her is a man who is mostly in shadow. He has high cheekbones and deep-set eyes and is also smiling. He is wearing a dark coat and a wide-brimmed hat that sits at an angle on his head. He reaches one hand around the woman, placing it near her breast, and she has one hand on his wrist. The area behind the two people is black, but on the right leafy vines crawl down the side of the archway, and a lattice-like window is partially visible.

Media Options

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Artwork overview

  • Medium

    etching, with touches of drypoint, on laid paper

  • Credit Line

    Rosenwald Collection

  • Dimensions

    sheet (trimmed irregularly to plate mark): 16 × 12.7 cm (6 5/16 × 5 in.)

  • Accession Number

    1943.3.8293

  • Catalogue Raisonné

    New Hollstein, no. 26, State vii/x


Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Rudolf Philip Goldschmidt [c.1840-1914], Berlin (Lugt 2926); (sale, C.G. Boerner, Leipzig, May 7-9, 1928, no. 810); purchased by Lessing J. Rosenwald [1891-1979], Jenkintown, PA (Lugt 1932d), 1928; gift to NGA, 1943.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

2000

  • Drawings and Prints from the Permanent Collection (Summer 2000), National Gallery of Art, Washington, 2000.

Bibliography

1949

  • Hollstein, F.W.H. et al. Dutch and Flemish etchings, engravings and woodcuts, ca. 1450-1700. 72 vols. Amsterdam: Menno Hertzberger, 1964; vol. XV, no. 11, x/xii.

1978

  • Illus. Bartsch 1978, vol.1, p.332, 11.

1990

  • Godefroy, Louis. The Complete Etchings of Adriaen van Ostade. San Francisco, 1990: no. 11, x/xii.

1993

  • The New Hollstein Dutch & Flemish Etchings, Engravings and Woodcuts, 1450-1700. (Adriaen van Ostade, Paolo Giordani and Jaco Rutgers, authors). Ouderkerk aan den Ijssel: Sound & Vision Publishers, 2023: no. 26, vii/x.

Inscriptions

in margin at bottom left, in plate: Av Ostade; verso, lower center, in graphite by a later hand: B. 11 Dav VIII.; lower right, in graphite by a later hand: 18928/Weho; bottom center, in graphite by a later hand: B.11 / ancienne et belle epreuve / 810

Markings

none

Wikidata ID

Q65018488

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