Interior in an Inn, called "The Skaters" (De Schaatsenrijder)
c. 1655
Medium
Etching and engraving on cream laid paper
Dimensions
Image: 42.7 × 34.5 cm (16 13/16 × 13 5/8 in.); Plate: 43.6 × 35.2 cm (17 3/16 × 13 7/8 in.); Sheet: 45.6 × 37.1 cm (18 × 14 5/8 in.)
Classification
engraving
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
9385
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
Throughout his career, the Dutch painter Adriaen van Ostade depicted rustic genre scenes of peasants enjoying village pleasures; these had a major influence on the subject matter of Dutch art both during and after the 17th century. Cornelis Visscher’s work echoes the liveliness and warmth of Van Ostade’s, showing a merry group of peasants gathering in an interior to talk and enjoy a smoke. The small pair of skates on the floor in the center of the foreground indicates that the group may have ret...
About the Artist
Cornelis Visscher · 1629–1658
Cornelis Visscher (1629–1658) was a Dutch Golden Age engraver, draughtsman, and printmaker born in Haarlem, the brother of fellow artists Jan de Visscher and Lambert Visscher. Little is known of his early life, but he studied under the Haarlem painter and engraver Pieter Claesz Soutman, with whom he closely collaborated from 1649 to 1650, producing numerous portrait engravings for Soutman's print ...