1209 - Maerten Stoop

Maerten Stoop Brawl in a Peasant Barn Oil on panel. 59 x 85.3 cm. Signed lower right: M. Stoop. Provenance Palais het Loo, Apeldoorn (wax seal with coat of arms verso). - Coll. Princess Anna of Prussia (wax seal with coat of arms and label verso). - Collegium Civitatis Academicae Lugduno-Batavae Supremum, Leiden (wax seal with coat of arms verso). - Coll. G. A. Franssen, Amsterdam (wax seal with coat of arms verso). - Carlo Bonte, Bruges, 4.2.2025, lot 285 (attributed to Benjamin Gerritsz. Cuyp). - Private collection, Southern Germany. Tempers flare, weapons are drawn, and complete chaos erupts among the peasants inside a disheveled barn. At the center of the composition, the action unfolds around a magnificently draped white cloth atop an overturned table. A bald, towering peasant clad in red and his adversary in the background to the left have lost all self-control in the dispute and must be held back with all might. In the foreground lies a dead-drunk peasant who was trampled in the scuffle – an unmistakable reminder of the dangers of excessive alcohol consumption, which can turn any jovial gathering into a brawl. Stoop’s tightly interwoven composition of figures elevates the scene far beyond conventional genre painting. Its dynamism and monumental format are highly reminiscent of history painting, distinguishing the work from comparable paintings of the theme by contemporaries such as Adriaen van Ostade and Benjamin Cuyp. Maerten Stoop, brother of the hunting and cavalry painter Dirck Stoop (1610–1686), died before reaching the age of 30 and left behind few works. A number of these are held in major European museums, including the Gemäldegalerie, Kassel (Inv. GK 210) and the Centraal Museum, Utrecht (Inv. 6925).