Gypsies in a Landscape

A carefully staged scene is laid out, each character caught in a pose that suggests a story is unfolding. The figures are posed against a background of fleeting silvery clouds and a sky that exudes a pearly light, throwing the turrets of the castle into a soft silhouette behind. The building exudes a fairy-tale air, giving the rural scene an almost fantastical appearance. Against the earthy tones of the landscape, the primary colour palette used for the figures makes them stand out, in blue, yellow and red. This travelling family are resting by the roadside, while a passer-by – in the red hat – has stopped, offering up his palm to be read and his fortune to be told.  

It is possible to identify this cast of nomads – the young child, the mother and baby, and the palm reader – in many of the Flemish artist, David Teniers’s (1610-90), works. They can be found dressed in the same costumes, with even the dog and the same props of the water jug and bowl, basket and staff, carefully arranged in a miniature still life.  A master of depicting peasant life, Teniers created these imaginary scenes for the seventeenth-century middle class of Flanders. These small-scale artworks were hugely popular among members of the law-abiding and polite urban society, who were intrigued by rustic life and the curious folk characters that they saw to populate the countryside.