Jan Miense Molenaer (1609/1610-1668), A Happy Peasant Family

Jan Miense Molenaer was born in Haarlem. His brother, Bartholomäus Molenaer, was a genre painter like himself. His brother Klaes Molenaer was a landscape painter. He was also married to a painter, Judith Leyster. Molenaer mainly painted genre scenes, but also some portraits and history pictures. In the thirties he painted some unusual genre scenes with large characters, but in the forties he switched to peasant interiors with cheerful parties. In the present picture, Molenaer unfolds a lively scene of happy peasants in a dark farmhouse. On the left we see an old couple who look after children, probably their grandchildren. The grandmother bakes pancakes with apples, the grandfather plays with a small child who is sitting on his lap. A dog and cat sit with them. Boys in the background are happy about the pancakes. To the right of the centre of the picture, a girl in a blue skirt, white blouse and red bodice catches the eye. She is playing a game of skill with two boys. They are trying to toss nuts through a hole in the braided mat that has been propped up against the barrel. The other figures are integrated in colour into the brown tone of the interior. Through the half-open door, a woman is looking into the house, playing a drum pot. Stylistically, the painting can be dated to the second half of the 1640s, when Molenaer increasingly painted peasant interiors with small figures. The old man appears in different postures in other pictures, for example in the National Gallery, Prague (DO 4328) and in the art collections of the University of Göttingen. Signed :MOLENÆR, Oil on a wooden panel, 63 × 88 cm