CODART, Dutch and Flemish art in museums worldwide

Focus on the Peck Collection: Drinking and Dozing: Inebriation in Art

31 May - 13 August 2024

Focus on the Peck Collection: Drinking and Dozing: Inebriation in Art

Exhibition: 31 May - 13 August 2024

For centuries, artists have depicted the act of drinking alcohol and its consequences, from moments of merriment to foolishness and misery. This Focus on the Peck CollectionĀ installation features the newest addition to the Peck Collection, Pieter Quastā€™sĀ Merry Company or the Allegory of SeductionĀ of about 1638-1645 purchased in 2023. This humorous scene of communal drinking is presented alongside another seventeenth-century depiction of a young woman mocked for her drunkenness and a twentieth-century American drawing of a man drinking alone. Though there are elements of comedy, each drawing conveys underlying lessons about the dangers of drinking.