This poorly executed work showing peasants dancing outside an inn seems to date from the second half of the seventeenth century; indeed the support which is of two pieces of oak timber from the west German/Netherlandish region, would have been ready for use from 1647, more plausibly from a decade later. While clearly inspired by the work of David Teniers II of the 1640s, with many motifs deriving from his output – for instance the dancing group seems in the Karlsruhe picture of 16484 – it seems not to be a direct copy at least after an extant work by the artist. Two other versions of a comparably poor artistic level are known: one, with differences in the background, was offered in an anonymous sale in Vienna5 as ‘signed’, a second, in the form of a reproductive etching in the same direction with no house and tower to the right and other differences, is in the Print Room of The Courtauld Institute Gallery (inv. no. G.1990.WL 2244). The existence of these two works may point to Teniers having executed a prototype which is now apparently lost. The sign of the inn is of a crescent moon. The church tower topped by a steeple has not been identified. Gregory Martin, 2022