Village Fiddler
CORNELIS DUSART
(Haarlem 1660 – 1704)
Oil on Canvas. 39,3 cm. x 32,1 cm. Signed Work. 1680-85 ca.
Our nice and fun work we can date it between 1680 and 1685, a period in which his compositions were very close to those of his teacher Adriaen van Ostade, it has all the typical components within the artistic production of Cornelis Dusart. We see an outdoor scene where a happy villager plays the violin and seems to be singing, to his right a child dances with this music along with a dog who is picking up their legs. On the left, a woman sitting on the floor with a child in her lap, seem to be enjoying the impromptu concert. In the background we see a group of farmers starting their lunch around a pot.
Dutch renowned artist who developed all of his artistic production in the city of Haarlem. Dusart was the son of Jan Tucert Dusart and Katharina Browers. Influenced by his teacher, Adriaen van Ostade (1610-1687), Dusart specialized in genre scenes. In the archives of the time period, it appears that the artist was registered as a member of the Guild of Saint Luke in Haarlem in 1680. All of his paintings are interiors and exteriors within the rural environment, and especially during the artist’s last period he loyally followed his mentor’s style. The peasants that Dusart portrays do not have the naturalness of those his teacher painted, they tend to be more defined and real. The color palette that the painter chooses is very varied and the viewpoint that he chooses is usually very high. Since Dusart was a student of one of the masters of Dutch art, it is inevitable that he is constantly compared to van Ostade, to the point that some of his works have been attributed to Adriaen van Ostade. It is noteworthy to mention that Dusart has his own style, which is evident by looking at the high quality of his figures and his mastery in painting.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
- W. Bernt, “The Netherlandish Painters of the Seventeenth Century”, Phaidon, 1970, Vol I, p. 35, plate 345
- Catálogo “All the paintings of the Rijkmuseum in Amsterdam”, p. 206
- Catálogo “Masters of Seventeenth Century, Dutch Genre Painting”, Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1984, p. 196-197
- Cristopher Wright, “Dutch Pinting in the Seventeenth Century. Images of a Gonden Age in British Collections, 1989, p. 186
- E. Benezit, Dictionnaire des peintres, sculpteurs, dessinateurs et graveurs”, Vol. 4 , p.s. 921 y 922.
PROVENANCE
- Private Collection, United States
- Private Collection, Great Britain
- Salomon Lillian Gallery, Amsterdam, 1994
- Private Collection, Amsterdam
MUSEUMS
Cornelis Dusart’s works can be found in many museums around the world including: Amsterdam- Rijkmuseum, Birmingham- Barber Institute, Braunschweig- Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum, Cheltemham- Art Gallery, Dublin- National Gallery, Haarlem- Frans Hals Museum, The Hague- DVR, London- Dulwich Picture Gallery, Moscow- Pushkin Museum, Vienna- Kunthistorisches Museum.
EXHIBITIONS
- Turin (Italy), Galleria Luigi Caretto “53 Mostra Maestri Fiamminghi ed Olandesi del XVI – XVII Secolo”, November 2012.
- Madrid, Feriarte, Soraya Cartategui Gallery, November 2013