Kermis

genre

Vinckboons was responsive to Pieter Bruegel's peasant imagery, especially his depictions of peasant fairs and related festivities. This theme was enormously popular during the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries and was (and still is) generally known by its Dutch title, Kermis. Vinckboons's Kermis of around 1605 is an outstanding representation of this theme, one of many he produced during his three-decade career.

Loading map…

About the Artist

David Vinckboons

1576 – 1633

Flemish-born painter, active in Amsterdam. He painted landscapes and genre scenes and is a transitional figure between the decorative and imaginative Mannerist tradition and the more naturalistic style associated with 17th-century Dutch painting. His early genre pictures depicting village festivals reveal the influence of Pieter Bruegel, and Vinckboons is credited with introducing some of his motifs into Holland. It has been asserted that Vinckboons's works can always be identified by the presence of a finch ('vinck') in a tree ('boom'), but the painstaking student usually finds that the bird has flown.

View all works →