This is a faithful photographic reproduction of a two-dimensional, public domain work of art. The work of art itself is in the public domain for the following reason:
Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse
This work is in the public domain in its country of origin and other countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 70 years or fewer.
You must also include a United States public domain tag to indicate why this work is in the public domain in the United States. Note that a few countries have copyright terms longer than 70 years: Mexico has 100 years, Jamaica has 95 years, Colombia has 80 years, and Guatemala and Samoa have 75 years. This image may not be in the public domain in these countries, which moreover do not implement the rule of the shorter term. Honduras has a general copyright term of 75 years, but it does implement the rule of the shorter term. Copyright may extend on works created by French who died for France in World War II (more information), Russians who served in the Eastern Front of World War II (known as the Great Patriotic War in Russia) and posthumously rehabilitated victims of Soviet repressions (more information).
https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/PDMCreative Commons Public Domain Mark 1.0falsefalse
The official position taken by the Wikimedia Foundation is that "faithful reproductions of two-dimensional public domain works of art are public domain". This photographic reproduction is therefore also considered to be in the public domain in the United States. In other jurisdictions, re-use of this content may be restricted; see Reuse of PD-Art photographs for details.
This file contains additional information, probably added from the digital camera or scanner used to create or digitize it.
If the file has been modified from its original state, some details may not fully reflect the modified file.
JPEG file comment
BUYTEWECH, Willem
(b. 1591/92, Rotterdam, d. 1625, Haarlem)
Merry Company
1617-20
Oil on canvas
Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam
Buytewech was not very active as a painter. Only about ten pictures can be attributed to him, and these were all made during the last seven or eight years of his short life. He had close contact with Frans Hals: according to an old inventory reference, both artists worked on the same picture; they used the same models; and Buytewech even copied some of Hals's works. But he never acquired Hals's fluency or boldness in the use of fat oil paint and he never worked life-size. Compared with Hals, the efforts of Buytewech are tight and his touch is minute. Nevertheless, he painted enough to justify the claim that he established the important category of the 'merry company' in an interior. An excellent example of the type is this painting in Rotterdam.
The fat Falstaff type who wears a garland of sausages is the same model who appears in one of Hals's early paintings. Buytewech's work already shows the early Baroque phase of Dutch painting. The figures are depicted close to the spectator, with a detailed realism. The colours have become bright and show a bit of a plein-air effect, although there is too much local colour - particularly pinks, yellows, and blues - to produce complete unity and harmony.
Buytewech was not yet the type of narrow specialist who developed in the following generation. His subject matter included religious themes, allegorical motifs disguised as scenes from everyday life, book illustrations, and charming landscapes as well as genre scenes, all this largely in graphic art.
--- Keywords: --------------
Author: BUYTEWECH, Willem
Title: Merry Company
Time-line: 1601-1650
School: Dutch
Form: painting