Title
The anglers
circa 1653
printed late 18th century
Artist
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Details
- Alternative title
- Le pêcheur à la ligne
- Dates
- circa 1653
printed late 18th century - Media category
- Materials used
- etching
- Edition
- vi of 7 states
- Dimensions
- 11.8 x 16.9 cm trimeed to platemark; 12.5 x 17.6 cm sheet
- Signature & date
Signed l.r., [incised monogram] "AvO". Not dated.
- Credit
- Purchased 1938
- Location
- Not on display
- Accession number
- 6724.18
- Copyright
- Artist information
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Adriaen van Ostade
Works in the collection
- Share
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About
Van Ostade is thought to have been a pupil of the great Dutch painter Frans Hals, but his paintings show no signs of the latter’s influence. With his brother Isaac, van Ostade became the main exponent of paintings of low-life genre and peasants, spending his prolific career in Haarlem, where subjects of this type were a particular specialty. He was also a talented printmaker, regarded by his contemporaries and later generations as second only to Rembrandt for his 50 etchings, which remained enduringly popular long after his death and went through a number of editions.
The 50 prints – of which only ten bear dates between 1647 and 1679 – invariably depict rustic villagers inside their cottages, in taverns, or in the outdoors engaged in various everyday activities.
A mood of blissful tranquillity is expressed in The anglers, van Ostade’s only true landscape print. On a ramshackle wooden bridge a hunched peasant, accompanied by a young friend holding a basket, trails his fishing line in a shallow stream. With its unassuming rusticity and understated presentation of the countryside at large, the print is a characteristic example of the Dutch approach to landscape art in the 17th century.
Peter Raissis, Prints & drawings Europe 1500–1900, 2014
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Exhibition history
Shown in 3 exhibitions
Forest and field: from Claude to the Barbizon School, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 14 Jul 1995–17 Sep 1995
Old Europe: Prints & drawings from the collection 1500-1800, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 03 Jun 2006–06 Aug 2006
European prints and drawings 1500-1900, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 30 Aug 2014–02 Nov 2014
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Bibliography
Referenced in 2 publications
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Renée Free, Forest and field: from Claude to the Barbizon School, Sydney, 1995, 6.
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Peter Raissis, Prints & drawings Europe 1500-1900, Sydney, 2014, p 62, col illus p 63.
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