The Fiddler

The year before this panel was painted, 1672, is still called the Disaster Year in the Netherlands. French armies had marched into the Dutch Republic and occupied Utrecht. The war was far from over when Adriaen van Ostade signed and dated this picture in 1673, on a plank lying at the bottom right. None of the war reaches this village. A travelling fiddler plays outside a country inn, a boy in a red jacket accompanies him on a hurdy-gurdy, and a man on a bench with a lidded tankard grins at the music while the household leans over the half-door. France caught up with the painting later. It belonged to Prince William V in The Hague, and in 1795 the French confiscated it and sent it to Paris. It came back after 1815 and has been in the Mauritshuis since 1822.