Condition:
Good
Watermark Arms of Amsterdam over EP
Description / Expertise
It is this type of iconography which was central to a genre of Dutch art in which everyday people are engaged in common activities. In addition, the stylized and exaggerated ways of depicting the peasant body confirmed the contemporary notions of what constituted proper and improper bodily posture. Cornelis Dusart underscored his subjects’ lewd behaviour through suggestive details: rustic wooden furniture and earthenware jugs; food, pipes and playing cards scattered about; patrons’ ragged clothes and missing teeth. In etiquette books of the time, for example, it was recommended to upper-class readers to avoid slouching and putting wait on both legs – postures that were associated with members of the lower classes.
Here, however, the draughtsman has adopted a more restrained treatment of the peasant shifting from the dishevelled, raucous and vulgar to the relatively decorous. Indeed, it reflects a new perception of the countryman as contented and carefree and is the kind of idealized view of peasant life which appealed to the prosperous collectors. By the same token, it also helped to emphasize the perceived differences between the upper and lower classes and between city and country. Drawings such as Scene at an Inn served as finished work of art and were often framed and hung, or simply pinned up, on the walls of middle-class homes.
Price
gbp 8500.00 (Pound Sterling)
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