Adriaen van Ostade (1610 – 1685) Dutch painter
The Netherlands’ most important painter of peasant and low-life genre images was born in Haarlem in late 1610. He supposedly received coaching from fellow 'Haarlemmer’ Frans Hals, together with Flemish painter Adriaen Brouwer (1606-1638), who lived in the city until 1631. Their mutual influence is apparent in their early works.
As a member of the artist guild, Van Ostade became a well-known painter in his region. Besides painting, he made career in the administration of Saint Luke’s Guild, becoming head of office (hoofdman) in 1647 and dean (deken) in 1662. Frans Hals painted Adriaen van Ostade as hoofdman in ’47.
In his early work, Van Ostade depicted scenes of sinful peasants using Rembrandt's vigorous chiaroscuro style. Later, he portrayed calmer, more respectable people in carefully structured, cozy rooms. An extremely productive artist, Van Ostade produced more than eight hundred paintings, including portraits, still lifes and popular watercolours. His fifty etches were only surpassed in quality by Rembrandt. His students included his brother Isack and Jan Steen.
Adriaen van Ostade married twice in his life, that he almost entirely spent in Haarlem. In 1672, however, at the time of the French invasion of the Netherlands, the painter temporarily fled Haarlem and moved to Amsterdam. After his death in April 1685, Johannes Vermeer directed the sale of the vast contents of Van Ostade's studio. He was buried in Saint Bavo's, the main church in Haarlem.
Many important museums have Van Ostade paintings in their collections. The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam owns eight of these:
The collection of the National Gallery in London includes the following Van Ostade works:
The Wallace Collection in London consists of two:
Just three in the National Gallery of Art (Washington DC), one in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York) and one in the Getty Museum (Los Angeles) respectively: