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A Peasant seated smoking

Image credit: The National Gallery, London

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Notes

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Whatever the purpose of this picture, the subject – a shabby man clutching an ale mug and pipe, his eyes cast to the ceiling as if searching in vain for a thought – is meant to be an object of ridicule. It has been suggested that the image might be a vanitas, an allegory of the fleeting nature of life, gone like a puff of smoke from a pipe. Another possibility is that it’s a tronie (‘face’), a painting of a stock character often with an exaggerated facial expression.

Diepraem made a speciality of such pictures, either single tronie portraits or groups of peasants partying in an inn, with the same outlandish expressions – and often with a similar blue and grey jug somewhere in the scene, containing Rhenish wine.

The National Gallery, London

London

Title

A Peasant seated smoking

Date

about 1650

Medium

Oil on oak

Measurements

H 28.5 x W 23 cm

Accession number

NG3534

Acquisition method

Presented by Dr J. Seymour Maynard through The Art Fund, 1920

Work type

Painting

Normally on display at

The National Gallery, London

Trafalgar Square, London, Greater London WC2N 5DN England

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