One of the pastiches of a well-known painting by the Flemish artist Adriaen Brouwer (1605-1638). Between 1626 and 1629, he was a pupil of the famous Dutch painter Frans Hals (1580-1666) in Amsterdam and Haarlem, before returning to Antwerp in 1631. Together with his friend David Teniers the Younger, Brouwer was one of the representatives of the popular genre painters working in the style of Pieter Brueghel the Elder (d. 1569). The subjects of his paintings include many tavern scenes with farmers, musicians, and singing people. His influence on other 17th-century painters like Adriaen and Isaac van Ostade and David Teniers is apparent. Many of his often small panel paintings were copied or imitated by other painters at the time.
The model for our painting is unmistakably Adriaen Brouwers work in the Alte Pinakothek in Munich (Inv. 629) belonging to a series of the five senses, representing hearing. A farmer with a red cap and greenish jacket plays the violin in the foreground, a jar between his spread legs; another farmer in the background, beer mug in his left hand, is approaching a singing trio - one is reading the text of the song from a slip of paper.
A number of good (our painting) and less good copies and pastiches of this painting are known, which are attributed to different artists, including Hendrik Martensz Sorg, Cornelis Saftleven, Jan Jansz. van Buesem, and Jan Miense Molenaer.
Our painting recently has been attributed - apart from to Adriaen Brouwer himself - to Jan Jansz. van Buesem (ca. 1600-ca. 1649), a pupil of Pieter Quast (1606-1647). Van Buesem is known for his genre works examples of which are included in a recent oeuvre catalogue (Schouws, nos.12-13, 16-17, 20, 31 (our copy not included)). On the back of our panel is a clipping pasted with a short description of the painting (no. 6468) containing an attribution to Jan Buesem by Dr Walther Bernt, München, from 1974 who adds: "Unten rechts monogrammiert: Jm."(sic!). These initials, however appear on the bench at the left and may well refer, however, to Jan (Miense) Molenaar who certainly was acquainted with the work of Adriaen Brouwer.
Jan Miense Molenaer (1610-1668) was a Dutch Golden Age genre painter whose style was a precursor to Jan Steen (1626-1679). He shared a studio with his wife Judith Leyster, one of the few female painters of the 17th century, and both may well have been pupils of Frans Hals in Haarlem. Later he developed a style more akin to Adriaen van Ostade, with works depicting music players mostly in a setting of a tavern with drinking farmers, such as his "Music Makers" (Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest), or "Family Making Music" (Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem).
It is all the more likely that Jan Miense Molenaar was the painter of our panel because of his initials on the bench (JM), and because of an old label mentioning his name, also pasted to the back of the panel (partly erased).
Apart from some minor damages in the lower part, this 17th-century painting is in very good condition. Lichtert (ed.), Adriaen Brouwer (2018), p. 82; Schouws, Jan Jansz. Beusem, het leven en werk van een Amsterdams 17de-eeuwse kleine meester (Master scriptie, University of Amsterdam, 2019), esp. pp. 23-30; Weller, Jan Miense Molenaar, painter of the Dutch Golden Age (NY, 2002).