Travellers Halting at an Inn

This work rich in genre and landscape elements is signed and dated 1645 in the lower right of the image, indicating that it was created two years after Ostade registered with the Haarlem painter's guild. Ostade, like Philips Wouverman, another painter active during this period in Haarlem, was known as a painter of these scenes of travelers resting before an inn or hostelry. The warm color range and superb composition, which effectively lend the image depth, and Ostade's trademark use of a white horse, all speak of Ostade's work. We can also sense a touch of the Rococo in the depicting of a woman carrying buckets suspended from a pole over her shoulders in the foreground. (Source: Masterpieces of the National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo, 2009, cat. no. 36)