DAVID RIJCKAERT III (Antwerp, 1612 - 1661) Peasant Feast Oil on canvas, 73X108 cm Provenance: Milan, Galleria Geri, 11 April 1957, no. 500 Ferrara, private collection Son of David Rijckaert II, the artist trained in his father's workshop and spent his entire working life in Antwerp where he became Master of the Guild of St. Luke in 1636-1637 and Dean in 1652-1653. His production generally includes scenes of peasant life, showing a clear influence of Adriaen Brouwer and the two David Teniers, depicting alchemists, charlatans, shoemakers, painters and inns with peasants, but also village festivals. Many of his works are signed and dated, facilitating a chronological and stylistic understanding from 1637 to 1661, and a glance at the catalogue shows that in the late 1640s the painter began to produce more elegant works with greater scenic complexity, leaving aside purely popular themes (Cf. B. van Haute, David III Rijckaert. A Seventeenth-Century Flemish Painter of Peasant scenes, Turnhout 1999). The canvas under examination can be compared with one with a similar subject in the Zamek Królewski collection in Cracow (oil on canvas, 84.5 x 120 cm - inv./cat.nr 36; see https://rkd.nl/explore/images/59520). The theme may be reminiscent of the Dutch proverb 'Zo de ouden zongen, zo piepen ook de jongen' (As the old man sang, so the young man played), i.e. children learn good things and bad things from their parents. The work is accompanied by a written communication by F. van Molle from the Archives Centrales iconographiques d'art National, Laboratoire central des Musées de Belgique.