Adriaen Pietersz. van de Venne (Delft 1589-1662 The Hague)

The present picture is a new addition to the oeuvre of Adriaen Pietersz. van de Venne.

Beggars were a beloved theme in Van der Venne’s painted ‘grauwtjes’, grisailles or brunailles. In this newly discovered composition the figures are dancing in an aroused manner. At the bottom is an inscribed banderol capturing ‘Lappen vreught’, engaging the viewer in the irony and its moral context. ‘Lappen’, rags, refer to the tattered clothing, but ‘lappen’ also is a Dutch verb denoting all sorts of reprehensible behaviour, from cheating to spilling to indulging oneself, as pointed out by Mariët Westermann when describing Van der Venne’s comparable dancing beggars titled ‘All Kromme Lappen’ in Museum Mayer van den Bergh, Antwerp of 1633 (see: 'Adriaen van de Venne, Jan Steen, and the art of serious play' in: De Zeventiende Eeuw, 15, 1999, pp. 44-5). The composition is also comparable to the grisaille entitled 'Kromme Lappen' in Lille (see Plokker, 1984, no. 59; Buijsen, 2018, I, fig. 3.30).