With no fewer than seventeen works, the genre painter Adriaen Brouwer is extremely well represented in Rubens's collection.With no fewer than seventeen works, the genre painter Adriaen Brouwer is extremely well represented in Rubens's collection.
Brouwer specialised in satirical scenes with brawling drinking peasants in tavern settings. Such tableaux showed the wealthy townsmen who purchased these works how not to behave. That is the main, underlying message of these paintings.
Rubens, however, was probably also fascinated by his younger colleague's keen powers of observation and by his use of colour and free painting technique. Although Brouwer died young, he proved very influential.
Your browser does not meet the minimum requirements to view this website. The browsers below are compatible. If you do not have one of these browsers, click on the icon to download the preferred browser.
