That is Priceless by Steve Melcher for April 12, 2017

Josh learned at a young age the first rule of moonshine biz: let them have a free sample.

All right, show us you can plow a straight furrow! No, you don’t get to use the horses!

“Good job Junior. I didn’t know you fixed the bucket on the well.”

“Ummm …”

Man, those horses are in poor shape.

Beer for my horses, overdoses on heroin for my friends.

Dad, it’s 1972, they now have these things called tractors.

Hans takes a gulp hoping that the Pink Elephants will pull the plow faster.

Weren’t those God-fearing Americans of 1820 dry as dust? The average adult drank about three times as much alcohol in the 1820’s as adults do now.

It’s likely that the beverage du jour here is cider. Water wasn’t the favored choice as it rarely was clean.

That being said, this particular image isn’t Adam’s usual subject matter. His principal claim to fame is a large body of work potraying the Napoleonic wars. He was court painter for Eugene de Beauharnais, Napoleon’s stepson. He also worked for the other side; one of his most highly regarded works was done for Maximilian I Joseph of Bavaria, who was an ally of Napoleon until he thought better of it in 1813. There doesn’t seem to be anything particulaly exciting about him—just a hardworking professional willing to risk working in war zones.

There’s a summary of his career at https://books.google.com/books?id=r8VHAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA5, from which most of the above comes.

This painting sold in 2012 for $11,000. See https://www.dorotheum.com/en/auctions/current-auctions/kataloge/list-lots-detail/auktion/9650-19th-century-paintings/lotID/37/lot/1382177-albrecht-adam.html for the auction record.

3 URLs (copy each as one line):

 

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Albrecht_Adam_Rast_der_Bauern_am_Feld_1818.jpg

 

has a larger-than-life-size image, as well as info and links that point to info about this roughly jumbo envelope size painting (best viewed by Google Chrome – can automatically translate linked pages, if necessary).

 

http://www.wga.hu/bio_m/a/adam1/biograph.html

 

has info about this artist.

 

http://www.hellenicaworld.com/Art/Paintings/en/AlbrechtAdam.html

 

shows this and several other works by the artist, along with a short bio.

 

Again, a larger strip image is shown by clicking the image in Mr. Melcher’s MASTERPIECE #1685 (April 11, 2017) entry, accessible by the Check out the blog! box below the last comment; so, I won’t point to it here.

Getting plowed… he took it as a challenge.

" They told me if I drank that stuff, it’d stunt my growth. Sure did ! Why look at how Pa’s lower half don’t match his top ! And look at me… I’m 32 years old ! "

thought it would be a PUI – plowing under the influence.