An itinerant musician playing the hurdy-gurdy to a group of children outside an inn door

Adriaen van Ostade (school of) 1610 - 1685

Summary

This scene of everyday life is by a follower of the important Haarlem genre painter, Adrian van Ostade. An itinerant musician is playing the hurdy-gurdy at the door of a thatched inn to the delight of a group of children, who cluster around him. The noise has drawn two characters to the half-door of the inn, from where they peer with obvious interest at the instrument. A lone figure, whose significance is ambiguous, sits in deep shadow in the left foreground, inviting the narrative that he too is dependent on the travelling musician's pitiful income. Van Ostade's early work consisted of low class subjects, such as this: rough taverns and peasants with grotesque faces, strongly influenced by the style of Adriaen Brouwer, a fellow pupil in the studio of Frans Hals. As his career progressed, however, his figures and settings became calmer, and the caricatural faces of the 1630s began to disappear. He was a prolific and successful painter in his day and his own exceptional pupils included his brother Isaak, Jan Steen, Cornelis Dusart and Cornelis Bega.