The Quarrel

Description In a Flemish village interior an elderly couple is seated back-to-back, scowling. A pert maidservant, obviously amused by their recent spat, is about to pour them some wine. An overturned chair and broken pots and pans are evidence to the feud that has transpired. In the foreground, the couple's dog laps milk spilled on the floor. This picture is characteristic of the stage-like interior scenes painted by de Braekeleer in the 1840s and 1850s. The elderly protagonists are identical to the figures that appear in many of his works such as "The Count of Mid-Lent in the Children's School," (1839) Musées royaux des beaux-arts de Belgique, Brussels, inv. 1186, and "The See-Saw," (1852), (illustrated in "Art News," Feb. 15-28, 1945, p. 37).

Conservation

Date	Description	Narrative
3/27/1962	Treatment	cleaned; coated

Exhibitions

• Salute to Belgium. The Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore. 1980.

Provenance Mrs. Margaret McCauley Turk [date and mode of acquisition unknown]; Walters Art Museum, 1959, by gift.

Inscriptions [Signature] Lower left: Ferdinand De Braekeleer ft / Antwerpen 1850

Credit Gift of Mrs. Margaret McCauley Turk, 1959