ADRIAEN VAN OSTADE, attrib. to

INTERIOR OF A TAVERN

ADRIAEN VAN OSTADE
Haarlem 1610 – 1685 Haarlem

Watercolor and ink on paper laid down on board
16.5 × 24.5 cm / 6.5 × 9.6 in; with frame: 43 × 35 cm / 16.9 × 13.8 in
Signed lower right: A. van Ostade 1673; collector’s stamp E.C. (Lugt 837) lower left, of Émile Calando
Slightly toned, small traces of age and handling consistent with the period.

PROVENANCE
– Collection Émile Calando (1840 – 1898), Paris
– Sale after his death, Hôtel Drouot, 11–12 December 1899 (expert Paul Roblin), lot 156, described as Intérieur d’estaminet, sold for 1005 francs
– Private collection, Paris

When examining this drawing, one is immediately struck by its unusually rich narrative and by the remarkable preservation of both signature and context. In the lower right corner, A. van Ostade 1673 appears in a confident hand, while at lower left the square collector’s mark E.C. reveals an illustrious provenance — that of the celebrated nineteenth-century connoisseur Émile Louis Dominique Calando.

A descendant of a prominent Parisian family, Calando belonged to the elite circle of graphic-art collectors who shaped the taste for Old Master drawings in fin-de-siècle France. An habitué of Hôtel Drouot and contemporary of Gustave Caillebotte, he was renowned for the discernment with which he assembled a cabinet of over three thousand sheets. His mark (Lugt 837) appears on drawings now dispersed among major museums, including the Louvre, which received part of his legacy in the 1970s.

At his posthumous sale (Hôtel Drouot, 11–12 December 1899, expert Paul Roblin), the present sheet — catalogued as Intérieur d’estaminet — realized 1005 francs, a remarkable price for a seventeenth-century drawing at the time. By way of comparison, Debucourt’s Un rendez-vous de chasse brought 2160 francs, Dürer’s Animaux et Fleurs 1200 francs, Goya’s sheets up to 240 francs, and Rubens’s Mucius Scaevola 550 francs. Such figures attest to the esteem in which Ostade’s drawings were already held at the close of the nineteenth century, placing them beside the most valued works of the Old Masters.

The drawing itself belongs to the mature period of Adriaen van Ostade, when the artist refined his mastery of light and atmosphere into a poetry of everyday life. The composition reveals a carefully staged interior animated by multiple figures, structured along a diagonal receding into space — a hallmark of Ostade’s complex spatial design of the 1670s.

Here, the main source of light comes from the left, softly illuminating the figures in the foreground, while a secondary glow from the depth of the room creates rhythm, movement, and an enveloping sense of air. This orchestration of light and shadow, typical of Ostade’s late drawings, transforms a simple tavern scene into a subtle meditation on human presence and community.

Executed in pen, ink, and watercolor, the sheet exemplifies the painter’s late graphic style, where contour gives way to tone, and line dissolves into shimmering transparency. Comparable works include Resting Travelers (1671, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam) and The Fiddler and his Audience (1673, The Hague), both displaying the same luminous chiaroscuro and compositional depth.

By the 1670s, Ostade’s drawings had become independent works of art — prized by collectors and often sold directly to patrons such as Constantin Sennepart and Jonas Witsen, who paid 1300 florins for a series of his “colored drawings.” The present sheet, with its intricate interplay of light, texture, and narrative, clearly belongs to this refined circle of late works, uniting the intimacy of observation with the pictorial sensibility of a master at the height of his powers.