At the barber - Attributed to Ferdinand van Kessel (1648-1696)

Attributed to FERDINAND VAN KESSEL
1648 - 1696
“At the Barber”
Oil on copper
Dimensions 22 x 17 cm, 25 x 33 cm (framed)

THE ARTIST
Ferdinand van Kessel, grandson of Jan Brueghel the Elder, was born in Antwerp in 1648 and represents one of the later heirs to the Brueghel family’s extraordinary artistic dynasty. Trained by his father, Jan van Kessel the Elder, Ferdinand continued the family’s characteristic refinement of detail, luminous palette, and love of allegory. His career developed between Antwerp and Breda, where he produced small-scale cabinet paintings that blended moral satire, natural observation, and wit, often within fantastical or animal-filled compositions.
Like his grandfather and great-grandfather, Ferdinand van Kessel worked within the tradition of the Brueghelian moral landscape and allegory, but his work reflects the tastes of a later age — one that favoured elegant, intimate works painted on copper. His brushwork is meticulous, his compositions animated by a delicate interplay between humour and moral reflection. Ferdinand’s oeuvre includes singery scenes (monkeys dressed as humans engaged in daily activities), allegorical representations of the senses, and cabinet pictures intended for learned collectors.
As a painter active in the late seventeenth century, Ferdinand van Kessel bridges two worlds: the enduring moralism of the Flemish Baroque and the playful, intellectual curiosity of the early Enlightenment. His paintings, often executed with miniature-like precision, demonstrate his ability to merge technical virtuosity with narrative complexity, a hallmark of the later Brueghel school.
THE ARTWORK
The present work, At the Barber, is a refined example of the singerie tradition—monkeys humorously imitating human behaviour to expose folly and vanity. In this animated interior, a monkey barber in a bright red cap trims the whiskers of a cat wrapped in a white drape, while his companions busy themselves in other tasks: one tending a patient’s foot, others waiting their turn. The scene brims with comic vitality and meticulous detail: the tools of the trade, the warm glint of copperware, and the softly lit chamber create a perfectly staged tableau.
The barber’s profession, encompassing both grooming and minor surgery, becomes the subject of sly moral commentary. Van Kessel transforms a familiar domestic setting into a theatre of human absurdity, where animals mirror mankind’s vanities. The work’s fine lighting, jewel-like tones, and smooth finish exemplify the artist’s mastery of the small-scale copper format cherished by seventeenth-century collectors.
The singerie genre, first popularized in Antwerp by Pieter van der Borcht and David Teniers the Younger, allowed painters to combine humour with moral reflection. The presence of the owl with spectacles, a recurring emblem, reinforces the painting’s allegorical depth — recalling the Flemish proverb “Wat baten kaars en bril, als de uil niet zien en lezen wil” (“What use are candle and glasses, if the owl will not see nor read”).
Comparable examples by van Kessel and his circle are found in the Kunsthistorisches Museum (Vienna), the Louvre (Paris), and the Wallace Collection (London). This panel’s exceptional quality and preservation confirm its place within the refined moral and imaginative world of the Brueghel–van Kessel lineage, where intellect, craftsmanship, and irony meet in perfect harmony.