Beskrivning: Se även beskrivning i den engelska versionen

Catalogue raisonné: Description in Flemish paintings C. 1600-C. 1800 III, Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, 2010, cat.no. 62:
 
Technical notes: The support consists of an oak
panel (0.3–0.8 cm thick) with a horizontal grain. Each
side has been bevelled by 2.2–3 cm. The panel has its
original format. On the reverse there are two large red
seals with coats-of-arms, one with an illegible text and
one with a monogram. Along the edges there are several
layers of strips of paper with printed French text, in
which it is possible to see the word “Louvre”. There are
also remnants of paper with handwriting. The support
has been prepared with a white chalk ground that has
been applied thickly and evenly and which completely
covers the support. A few retouches are visible on the
child sitting in the woman’s lap. The other figures are
intact. Some retouching along the edges, mainly at the
top, bottom and to the right. The painting underwent
conservation treatment in 1930 and 1965.

Provenance: Bequeathed by Christina Nilsson in 1930.

Bibliography: NM Cat. 1958, p. 57; NM Cat. 1990,
p.107.

This genre painting by Jean-Louis Demarne, whose
artistic career was spent in France, portrays several
men, women and children outside a low building
against a background with trees in leaf and a landscape
with a church and other buildings. The work contains
a number of narrative elements, the most prominent
being the family playing with the top. Others depict
two men and a child peering out of the door of the
building, a woman cleaning a copper cauldron and a
dog staring at us out of the scene. Other narrative elements
that are typical of genre paintings consist of a
mother with a child in her lap who seems, in its turn, to
be offering a small biscuit to a dog next to them. To
their right there is a boy sitting on the ground with a
birdcage. Left of the low table are two children and
behind it another two children and two men. On the
whole the figures are looking at the game with the top
on the table in the centre of the image. This also
applies to the figures peering out of the door. To the
left we are offered a view of a landscape in which we
can see a well, a church and other buildings. There are
similarities, for instance, with a work by Demarne that
was exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1824 and which
now belongs to the Musée de Grenoble.1

KS

1 For similar depictions of figures see, for instance, the painting entitled
Saltimbanques devant une auberge, 1824, oil on wood, 25 x 31 cm, that was
exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1824. Now owned by Musée de Peinture et de
Sculptures de Grenoble, inv. no. MG 140.[End]

Foto: Erik Cornelius / Nationalmuseum 2007

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