A Boy Seated at a Table, Smoking

1690 · Private collection

genre

Boonen specialized in intimate small-scale subjects in the tradition of the Leiden fijnschilders, which had been established earlier in the seventeenth century by Dou. In the present finely painted interior scene a young man wearing a rich costume with slashed sleeves leans against the back of his chair and puffs on a long clay pipe. In his left hand he holds a glass of wine and a violin lies on the table which is covered with a fine oriental carpet.

About the Artist

Arnold Boonen

1669 – 1729

Dutch painter. He began his training at the age of 13 with the painter Arold Verbuys (1673-1717) and in 1683 was apprenticed to the portrait and genre painter Godfried Schalcken (at that time working in Dordrecht), with whom he remained for six years. After working as an independent painter in Dordrecht, he travelled to Germany, where he had considerable success as a portrait painter in Frankfurt-am-Main, Mainz and Darmstadt. He settled in Amsterdam in 1696, shortly after his return to the Netherlands, and worked successfully as a portrait and genre painter. He succeeded Nicolas Maes as the leading painter of fashionable society and visiting dignitaries, including the Tsar Peter the Great of Russia.

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