x ADRIAEN VAN OSTADE 411 878. A FAMILY GROUP (or, The Offer of Marriage). A woman in green rises from her chair and with a lively gesture hands a letter to another woman, who sits on a chair facing the spectator, with her right arm hanging down, and plays with a little brown dog. Behind this group stands a man in black, who lays his left hand on his heart. To the left sits another man, leaning his left hand on his thigh and his right elbow on a table, upon which are a cut melon on a delft plate and a glass. Above the table is a window ; in the left background is a door ; on the wall are several pictures. The man standing appears to be the painter himself. Painted about 1650-5. Formerly ascribed to Isack van Ostade, and before that to Koedijck. [Compare 896.] Panel, 25 inches by 20 inches. Exhibited at The Hague, 1890, No. 78, as by Isack van Ostade. Sale. Muilman, Amsterdam, April 12, 1813, No. 34 (215 florins) as by Koedijck. In the collection of A. Bredius ; exhibited on loan in the Royal Picture Gallery, The Hague, 1907 catalogue, No. 557. 879. THE (SO-CALLED) FAMILY OF THE PAINTER. Sm. 191. Ten figures in a room. To the left a man of mature years sits on a chair, turned three-quarters right. Beside him to the right sits his wife, facing the spectator, grasping with her right hand her husband's left. Farther to the right are three little girls ; the youngest, leaning against her mother's knee, takes some cherries from the next older girl who sits on the ground. Behind them stand a young man and a woman. On the extreme right, in front of a marble chimney-piece adorned with reliefs, are two other daughters, one seated and the other standing ; on the extreme left, behind the father and in front of the bed, stands the eldest son. All the figures are in dark clothes, except two children, who are dressed respectively in chestnut-brown and in grey. On the floor lie some flowers. In the middle of the back wall is a door, to right and left of which hang two pictures. The right-hand picture, a genre-piece with life-size figures, might be by Frans Hals. It has long been known that the group does not represent A. van Ostade and his family, with Isack van Ostade and his wife the two figures standing in the centre as was sup- posed in the time of Sm. Signed in full, and dated 1654 5 panel, 28 inches by 32 inches. Engraved by Oortman (with Chataigner in the Musee Napoleon, vol. ix. p. 596). Sale. J. van Leeuwaarden, widow of P. Merkman, Haarlem, September 21, 1773, No. i said to be 35 inches wide. In the collection of Louis XVI., King of France. In the Louvre, Paris, 1903 catalogue, No. 2495 ; valued by the experts in 1816 (at jiooo). 880. PORTRAIT OF A GEOGRAPHER. He is seated, seen in full face. He has long hair, and wears black, with gloves in his left hand. On the right is a table with a celestial globe and an open book. Copper, 9 inches by 7 inches. In the collection of the late Q^C. Shaw, Boston, U.S.A.
