Egbert van Heemskerck I

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Egbert van Heemskerck I
Dutch, 1610-1680

"Listening to the News": Boers Assembled in a Tavern, One Reading a Letter

Signed 'E Heemskerck fec 16..' (lower right)
Oil on Panel, 16 x 12.2 in (40.6 x 31 cm)

(in an antique burled walnut frame)

	Provenance: With Neumeister Munich, October 20, 1983, lot 540 (as by van Heemskerck I); with Sotheby's London, April 3, 1985, lot 233 (as by van Heemskerck I); with Spik Berlin, December 13, 1986, lot 440 (as by van Heemskerck I), when accompanied by a certificate from Prof. J. Müller-Hofstede as by van Heemskerck the Elder; Private Collection, The Netherlands, until 2002. Documented and registered with the RKD. Museums and Collections: The Louvre, Paris; The Fogg Museum of Art, Cambridge; Bowes Museum, County Durham, England; The National Gallery of Victoria, Australia

	Egbert van Heemskerck the Elder figures in the tradition of the great Dutch painters of genre and peasant scenes of boers and low-lifes carousing, smoking or drinking. His work fits into the lineage of Adriaen Brouwer and Adriaen van Ostade, with whom he was exactly contemporary, all of whom owe allegiance to the earlier masters, Bosch and Brueghel. Carousing peasants were an inexhaustible source of amusement to the city dweller, which accounts for the success of pictures depicting low-life scenes. The elder van Heemskerck was a native of Haarlem, and died in London, leaving a son of the same name who achieved considerable success in England.