Entry by
Susan Anderson,
completed November 01, 2017:
Dusart copied this drawing after a compositional sketch in graphite and brown ink by his master, Adriaen van Ostade, the dominant practitioner of peasant genre in the Low Countries during the 17th century (Fig. 1). Van Ostade used this sketch as the preliminary study for a finished watercolor of the same subject, but with striking differences to his original idea (Fig. 2). Dusart therefore used Van Ostade’s preparatory drawing as his model.
Like several of Dusart’s drawings in the Harvard Art Museums (1965.211, 1979.45, and 1999.159), this sheet is emblematic of how Dusart incorporated his teacher’s studio contents, presumably inherited from Van Ostade, into his own practice and work. In Tric Trac Players under an Arbor (1999.159), Dusart added his own campaign of ink to the background of a compositional drawing by Van Ostade, but in The Interior of an Inn, he left Van Ostade’s original sketch unaltered in favor of rendering his own version on a new sheet. He adhered to the original’s figural groupings and background elements, such as the windows, vertical boards, chest, and ladders; but to make the subject his own, he finished out the composition by adding features such as a balcony at the upper left, roof beams and boards, and a doorway at the right, as well a unifying application of dark brown. By covering most of the sheet with wash and leaving a few areas of paper in reserve, Dusart contrasted the bright firelight falling on the figures with the dark interior of the inn.
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