This interior of a public house by Flemish artist David Teniers The Younger, reminds me of an amateur photographic snapshot, so candid and honest is the scene. The expressions are perfect. I especially like how the smoking man’s eyes evoke that now-familiar, rabbit-in-the-headlights image of someone looking directly into the camera lens, caught unawares; he seems all the more real for it and the picture all the more truthful.

The painting resides at the Brukenthal palace in Romania.

Click the image to expand.