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Throughout his career, Adriaen van Ostade focused almost exclusively on the depiction of peasant life. His approach to the subject developed from his sharply satirical early works indebted to Adriaen Brouwer to a more rustic, sympathetic portrayal in his later decades. The coarse chiaroscuro effects were gradually replaced by a brighter coloration, and care for detail played an increasingly important role, as can be seen in the present richly articulated work, in which various kinds of utensils add to the rural disorder. Van Ostade's most acclaimed etching, The Family of 1647, marked a watershed in this development. Its composition seems to have served as a blueprint for several of Van Ostade's subsequent variations of such scenes, both drawn and painted.
The present painting is closely related to the etching of 1647 in the layout of the interior.
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