A painter and printmaker, Adriaen van Ostade is best known for his genre pictures of Dutch peasant life, which ultimately derive from Pieter Bruegel the Elder and German printmakers of the sixteenth-century. He also did religious subjects, portraits, and landscapes. Van Ostade was a prolific artist, executing his small-scale works in oil, usually on wood panels. He also worked in watercolour and did spirited pen drawings. His fifty etchings earned him a reputation as a printmaker second only to Rembrandt among his Dutch contemporaries. |
