Hendrick Martensz. Sorgh (Rotterdam c. 1610-1670) An interior with peasants seated around a table playing cards. Photo Christie's Image Ltd 2014

oil on panel, 20¾ x 26½ in. (52.7 x 67.5 cm.). Estimate $30,000 – $50,000

Provenance: Van der Esch family, Holland (according to the wax seal on the reverse).
with Newhouse Galleries, New York, no. 16912 (according to a label on the reverse).
with Scheidwimmer, Munich, c. 1975.
Anonymous sale; Christie's, London, 6 July 2007, lot 135 (£44,400), where acquired by the Hascoe family.

Notes: The son of a market bargeman - hence the nickname 'de Sorch', meaning 'careful', after his manner of handling cargo - Sorgh trained with David Teniers II in Antwerp (according to Houbraken). Like his contemporaries Herman and Cornelis Saftleven, Sorgh played a significant role in developing in Rotterdam the tradition of painting peasant interiors that earlier had been established by Teniers and Adriaen Brower in the Netherlands. Like so many of his works in the genre, the present painting, in which a jolly group of peasants play cards in a darkened tavern, lit from the left from an open window, is indebted to these older masters' compositional formulas. While Sorgh held the official post of market barge captain for the Rotterdam-Dordrecht line throughout his adult life, painting was his true vocation. Indeed, he was appointed dean of the Guild of St. Luke in 1669.

Christie's. OLD MASTER PAINTINGS, 4 June 2014, New York, Rockefeller Plaza - http://www.christies.com/