26. Adriaen van Ostade
(1610-1685)

The Barn

(click on image to print)
Ostade, The Barn

The Barn

Etching, 1647, 155 x 189 mm., Godefroy 23 x/x, Hollstein 23 x/x. Beautifully printed impression of the final state, after the Picard edition, on thin laid paper with an indecipherable watermark, trimmed inside the platemark but outside the borderline, the image and signature, therefore, complete. The subject, unusual for an Ostade etching, is more the interior of the barn and its appurtenances than it is the single peasant woman, at the far right, who populates it. The etching repays multiple viewings, for the spatial relationships are quite complex and subtle and reveal themselves only on close inspection.