The Artist

Learn more about some of the artists responsible for creating the art objects in this project, and the questions regarding authorship that remain.

Is it a "real" Brouwer?

Men Smoking in an Interior is one of many variants of this scene associated with the innovative genre painter Adriaen Brouwer (1605-1638). But was the Picker’s version done by Brouwer himself?

Who made it?

What to do when a work is not signed? Learn more about “connoisseurship,” a traditional but contested method of stylistic comparison used by art historians to assign authorship. 

Scene at eye level view of male peasants in a tavern, three seated in the foreground
Detail of signature

Is it a "real" Brouwer?

Men Smoking in an Interior is one of many variants of this scene associated with the innovative genre painter Adriaen Brouwer (1605-1638). But was the Picker’s version done by Brouwer himself?

Scene at eye level view of male peasants in a tavern, three seated in the foreground

Who made it?

What to do when a work is not signed? Learn more about “connoisseurship,” a traditional but contested method of stylistic comparison used by art historians to assign authorship. 

Detail of signature