Smoker and Drinker in a Tavern

In his "Smoker and Drinker in a Tavern", Ostade shows two characters talking at a wooden table in mean surroundings. One holds a clay pipe, the other a beer-mug. In front of them on the table are tobacco in a folded paper and a small brazier to light the pipe.
Beer-drinking and smoking were cheap pleasures, affordable even for the poor rural population. The town-dwelling purchasers of these small paintings were looking not only for entertainment, but saw confirmation of their prejudices: they saw the peasant milieu as full of idlers, bumpkins or wastrels, associating it with sensual pleasures and vices such as gluttony or sloth. In Dutch painting, depictions of smokers and smoking may also be linked with the sense of taste, in the “Five Senses” series.

Habersatter Thomas: Adriaen van Ostade, Smoker and Drinker in a Tavern, in: Ducke Astrid, Habersatter Thomas (Hrsg./Edi.): von | from 0 auf | to 100. Residenzgalerie Salzburg 1923-2023. Salzburg 2023, S./p. 190-191