Lot 1067 | View of a Village with Scuffling Peasants and Quacks

DROOCHSLOOT, JOOST CORNELISZ
Utrecht 1586 - 1666


Title: View of a Village with Scuffling Peasants and Quacks.
Technique: Oil on wood.
Measurement: 58,5 x 96,5cm.
Frame/Pedestal: Framed.
Verso:
Adhesive labels with work information.

Provenance:
Private ownership, Germany.

With his village scenes and peasant pieces, the Dutch artist Joost Cornelisz Droochsloot joins the tradition of the great Pieter Bruegel the Elder (1525-1569) in the so-called "Golden Age", who conquered a completely new field of art with his complex composed peasant scenes. Droochslot, who was born in Utrecht in 1586 and died there in 1666, concentrated on historical and biblical themes in his early work, while in his later work he turned entirely to genre painting, specialising in depictions of peasant village scenes.
In this FINE ART auction, VAN HAM is able to offer two confirmed original paintings by the artist as well as a work attributed to him. All three paintings, which are to be located in the artist's late work, have in common the typical Droochsloot colouring of brown and yellow tones, which he combined with a strong red in the depiction of the figures.
The village view in lot 1067, for example, shows a moving crowd with numerous figures on a village street in the foreground and a scuffling group around a table on the left. The street leading to the back has been extended exaggeratedly by the artist and extends to the picture horizon in the painting's extreme horizontal format. The figure types, which the artist shows in detail in their expressive poses, reproduce in their depicted actions the image of the "simple village men and women". This view of people and their folly was already held by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, who - like Droochsloot - depicted the lives of villagers and villagers' wives from the perspective of a townsman. In the middle ground of the painting we see a quack who attracts the attention of the interested people.
We find a similar colouring and composition with a busy foreground and a street leading into the depths with houses on either side in the painting View of a Busy Village Street (lot 1069). Although the figure types show great similarities to those in lot 1067 and 1068, they differ in their elaboration, which appears less detailed in lot 1069. Because of this, the present painting is considered "attributed", but in the Old Master-like manner of the execution of the trees and architecture it is in no way inferior to Droochsloot's assured works.
At the centre of the painting "Peasant Scene in a Village" (lot 1068) are the people and their expressive postures so characteristic of Droochsloot. At two wooden panels, several people of different ages sit together and discuss; other standing people join them. In the foreground and background we see other isolated people going about their activities. Next to the rural barn architecture at the back right, a road is indicated on the left, which presumably leads the view backwards in a long line. However, this road is not visible, which leads us to assume that the painting is a fragment of a larger composition. We do not know today whether only the fragment has been preserved in order to deliberately draw attention to the figures or whether the work fell victim to damage possibly caused by the war. However, the detailed types of figures and their expressive poses suggest that the painting was created in the 1650s.
Although Droochsloot's paintings have often been described as monotonous because of the same colouring and similar compositions, the present paintings demonstrate the artist's masterly skill: He always directed the main focus of his paintings to the different characteristics of the people with great attention to detail and was thus able to successfully specialise in the depiction of village scenes in his late work.

We are grateful to Ellis Dullaart, RKD, The Hague, who confirmed the attribution of the present painting on the basis of a high-resolution digital photograph.

The painting is listed in the database of the RKD under no. 244741: 
https://rkd.nl/en/explore/images/244741