Jan van der Venne (active Brussels circa 1631-1651)

This vigorous depiction of unkempt figures, who seem to be gypsies despite the ornate furniture on which they sit, has much in common with van der Venne's pictures of gypsies, such as the Gypsy women around a fire, with a mother delousing her child, executed around 1630 (Musée du Louvre, Paris; [inv. R.F. 2004-13], or the Gypsies eating gruel beside a shelter, sold at Christie's, New York, 5 October 1995, lot 45. The head of the elderly figure in the background, who may be either male or female, is typical of the artist's physiognomic types.

I.Q. van Regteren Altena associated this drawing with an artist whom he called the 'Pseudo Van de Venne'. Jacques Foucart was the first to identify this anonymous master with the Mechelen-born artist Jan van de Venne (in 'Une fausse énigme: le pseudo et veritable van de Venne', Revue de l'Art, XLII, 1978, pp. 53-62), and further aspects of his work as a painter were discussed by Hans Vlieghe in his article 'Towards the identification of the Pseudo-Van de Venne, alias Jan van de Venne' (in Essays in Northern European Art presented to Egbert Haverkamp-Begemann on his Sixtieth Birthday, Doornspijk, 1983, pp. 287-90).