Oil on canvas

The broadly smiling man is most likely a popular pub owner or bartender. He holds what appears to be a clay pipe in one hand and a spouted pewter ale measure in the other. Such measures were used in public houses to dispense a prescribed quantity of ale rather than as ordinary drinking vessels, suggesting that this cheerful figure may have been a local “publican.”

The person I acquired this from was convinced this was the village drunkard. I’m not so sure. Whoever he was, he seems to have been worth painting, and he doesn’t seem to mind.

PROVENANCE
With Charles Jay Conover Antiques, Los Gatos, United States;
Private collection, San Francisco, United States.