Vioolspeler 1670 - 1724

This mezzotint, made by Jacob Gole around the turn of the 18th century, depicts a fiddler playing for an audience of two, in what appears to be a tavern. The print makes visual reference to the work of Adriaen Brouwer, a Flemish painter active earlier in the 17th century, who specialized in scenes of peasant life. Gole has even signed Brouwer’s name alongside his own in the lower left corner. We can assume that Gole is consciously aligning himself with this tradition, invoking the idea of the artist as a chronicler of everyday life. But what might such images of everyday life have meant to viewers in the Dutch Republic? Prints such as this would have circulated among a growing middle class with more time and money to spend on art. The question for us as historians is how such images participated in the construction of social class and cultural value. To answer that question, we can look to sources outside the art world, such as newspapers, literature, and economic data to better understand the period.