David Ryckaert III, who worked in Antwerp, was the most important Flemish genre painter of the mid-17th century, after Adriaen Brouwer and David Teniers. A shoemaker works in an interior on the left. Finished shoes hang on a shelf on the wall behind him. Small pieces of leather lie on the floor; larger ones lean against the table, or lie on it. His wife sits at the spinning edge and spins yarn. The couple is old. In the background on the right, three men linger by a fireplace; two seated, one man in the center standing with his back to the fire to warm himself. A copper engraving hangs on the chimney mantle. In the foreground on the right, the painter has placed a still life of kitchenware, including a Chinese porcelain bowl. The woman with the spinning wheel also appears similarly in a painting by Ryckaert in the Simferopol Art Museum, Simferapol, inv. no. Ж-386 (RDK database, artwork no. 282902).
