A Couple in an Interior with a Fortune-Teller
A fortune-teller reads the palm of a woman in a white ruff before a fireplace while a man in a plumed hat looks on: an oval genre scene by the Utrecht painter Jacob Duck. Full commentary ↓
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A Couple in an Interior with a Fortune-Teller is an oil painting by Jacob Duck (ca. 1632–33) in the collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. It measures 25.1 × 33 cm.
In the pictureInside an oval picture, in a room with a fire burning in the fireplace, a woman in a white ruff, black dress and green skirt sits in a chair holding out her hand. An old woman wrapped in a patterned shawl peers at that hand, and behind them stands a man in a plumed hat. Odds and ends are scattered on the floor.
BackgroundA Gypsy fortune-teller who pretends to read a palm while stealing a purse was a staple subject of 17th-century Dutch genre painting, a theme that began with Caravaggio's The Fortune Teller. Jacob Duck worked in Utrecht and liked to paint interiors with soldiers and women. The oval format was popular with collectors of the time.
Puzzle tipLay the outside first with the oval border and the dark corner pieces. Fit the white ruff, the green skirt, the plumed hat and the flames in the fireplace in that order, and fill the brown walls and floor last. 100 pieces is about right.
- Artist
- Dutch, Utrecht, born ca. 1598–1600, died 1667 Utrecht
- Classification
- Paintings
- Medium
- Oil on wood
- Dimensions
- 25.1 x 33 cm
- Credit line
- Gift of Dr. and Mrs. Richard W. Levy, 1971
Source: The Metropolitan Museum of Art ↗
Stories about this work
- From Young Painter to Old Man: A Life in the Last Four European Paintings
A painter painted by a painter, a nameless old man, an inscrutable allegory and a palm-reading swindle. Four seemingly unrelated works, gathered under the frame of scenes from a life.
