Legacy
The number of Ostade's pictures is given by Smith at 385, but by Hofstede de Groot (1910) at over 900. At his death, the stock of his unsold pieces was over 200. His engraved plates were put up to auction with the pictures. Fifty etched plates, most of them dated 1647–1648, were disposed of in 1686. there are 220 of his pictures in public and private collections, of which 104 are signed and dated, while seventeen are signed with the name but not with the date.
The prices which Ostade received are not known; but pictures which were worth £40 in 1750 were worth £1000 a century later, and Earl Dudley gave £4120 for a cottage interior in 1876.
The signatures of Ostade vary at different periods, but the first two letters are generally interlaced. Up to 1635, Ostade writes himself Ostaden, e.g. in the Bagpiper of 1635 in the Liechtenstein collection at Vienna. Later on, he uses the long s (f), and occasionally he signs in capital letters. His pupils are his own brother Isaack, Cornelis Bega, Cornelis Dusart and Richard Brakenburg.
Read more about this topic: Adriaen Van Ostade
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“What is popularly called fame is nothing but an empty name and a legacy from paganism.”
—Desiderius Erasmus (c. 1466–1536)