Peasants Playing Backgammon and Merry-making in a Tavern

The delicate draftsmanship in this drawing forms an interesting contrast to a coarse subject: a tavern in which peasants engage in bawdy behavior. A handful of rough looking men gather to play backgammon, while others sit around, immensely enjoying their smoking tobacco. Men, women, and even children drink beer. Couples fondle one another in the more secluded spaces of a corner or balcony.

Cornelis Dusart underscored his subjects' lewd behavior through suggestive details: rustic wooden furniture and earthenware jugs; food, pipes, and playing cards scattered about; patrons' ragged clothes and missing teeth. He used a sharpened piece of hard black chalk to draw on the smooth vellum and gray ink to define shadow areas; media that provide a light but fine rendering.

The type of iconography depicted in this drawing was central to a genre of Dutch art in which everyday people are engaged in common activities. Drawings were often framed and hung, or simply pinned up, on the walls of middle-class homes. This large-scale drawing served as a finished work of art, but Dusart also made a painting of the same scene.