Peasant with Bicorne and Tankard

This panel is tiny, barely the size of a postcard, about 15 centimetres tall. In the 1630s pictures this small were made for collectors to hold close and study by candlelight, and Brouwer fitted a single head into the space. The man wears a bicorne, an old two-cornered hat, and grips a wooden tankard. He is not the portrait of a real sitter. He is a study of a face and a type, the kind of drinker Brouwer knew from the taverns he painted. The whole thing is done in a few quick, loose strokes, the ruddy face and the shadow under the hat carrying most of the work. Max Geldner, a Basel collector, gave it to the museum here in 1958.