LAER, Pieter van
(b. 1592/95, Haarlem, d. 1642, Haarlem)

Landscape with Morra Players

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Oil on panel, 33,5 x 47 cm
Szépművészeti Múzeum, Budapest

In the first half of the seventeenth century many Dutch painters made the long journey to Italy to familiarize themselves with Italian art. Pieter van Laer lived in Rome from 1623 to 1639, and the picture in the Budapest collection was painted during the last years of his stay. The free composition of his paintings, the broad gestures and bright sunshine illuminating the colours reveal what most captivated the artist, who had moved south from the grey rainclouds of the Netherland skies.

Genre painters often represent some play or game. The simplest social game is the "morra" for which no objects are needed because the fingers of the hand suffice. This primitive entertainment has brought together this bunch of penniless, ragged tramps. Laer wilfully apprehended them and their environment in what they are common, trivial and humorous, too unlike the other canvases of the painter. Aristocratic collectors liked such small-size genre pictures, for they considered them funny.

A smaller second version of the painting is in the Alte Pinakothek in Munich.