Fortune Teller
by COSSIERS, Jan, Oil on canvas, 112 x 169 cm
The earliest work of the Antwerp artist Jan Cossiers, which can be dated in the 1630s, consisted of genre pictures,, mostly life-size scenes of fortune tellers, gypsies and smokers. Because of their subject matter and their remarkable chiaroscuro these paintings are related to similar work by the Caravaggists. These early genre pieces are executed in a fairly free application of paint of a rather creamy consistency which is quite different from the smooth technique of the ‘tenebrosi’.