The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of December 19, 2025

Vintage Scene

1650s

circle of Le Nain

(French)
France, 17th century
oil on canvas
Framed: 111 x 142 x 8 cm (43 11/16 x 55 7/8 x 3 1/8 in.); Unframed: 92 x 121 cm (36 1/4 x 47 5/8 in.)
Gift of Mrs. Salmon P. Halle in memory of Salmon Portland Halle 1958.175.1
Location: Not on view

Description

The mid-17th century saw revived interest in representations of the lower classes. Artists like the Le Nain brothers in France painted scenes that looked back to the Renaissance tradition of pastoral imagery. The Le Nain often depicted ordinary country folk going about their daily business, subjects and figures they remembered from their childhood in rural Laon. Considered a companion piece to Peasant Children Dancing (1958.175.2), Vintage Scene has also been attributed to the Master of the Béguins, a Flemish artist who worked in the manner of the Le Nain in Paris. Here, good-natured though bawdy men drink in the background shade, while a sweet-faced young woman in the center surrounded by chubby children flashes the viewer a coy smile that reveals her awareness of the slowly creeping hand of her drunk companion. While peasants drinking was a popular subject among Flemish artists, the theme of wine connects the subject with the grape harvest, which recalls the Le Nain's agricultural homeland in France. This use of both aesthetic and biographical aspects of the Le Nain's lives demonstrates the Master of Béguins's ability to absorb the stylistic and thematic lessons of the famous brothers.
  • Count Ottone Ponte di Scarnafigi of Sardinia (died 1788);
    Count Louis de Seyssel, (Turin, Italy), sold to Salmon Portland Halle, 1916
    Salmon Portland Halle, upon his death, by inheritance to his wife
    Mrs. Salmon Portman Halle, by gift to the Cleveland Museum of Art, 1958.
  • Cleveland Museum of Art. Catalogue of Paintings. Pt. 3. European Paintings of the 16th, 17th, and 18th Centuries. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1974. Reproduced: cat. 40A, p. 96 - 98
    Thuillier, Jacques. Les frères Le Nain. Dijon, France : Éditions Faton, 2016. Mentioned and reproduced: P. 215, no. 70
  • Paris, Grand Palais, 1978/79: "Les Frèrers Le Nain," cat. no. 69, pp. 318, 319, 321-322, 324, repr. p. 321. (catalogue by jacques Thuillier and Michel Laclotte).
    Les Frères Le Nain (The Brothers of Nain). Musée du Louvre, Paris, France (organizer) (October 3, 1978-January 8, 1979).
    Toledo (Ohio) Museum of Art 1947: "The Brothers Le Nain," cat. no. 14., repr.
  • {{cite web|title=Vintage Scene|url=false|author=Le Nain|year=1650s|access-date=19 December 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1958.175.1