Object Image

Merrymaking in a Tavern

The son of a brewer, in 1647 Jan Steen began his professional training as a painter. He is thought to have studied with Jan van Goyen and Adriaen van Ostade, whose low-life genre pictures greatly influenced his early works. Steen’s Merrymaking in a Tavern combines the Flemish tradition of low-life tavern scenes with the more elegant Dutch merry companies. The lively description of the domestic muddle of mothers, children, dancers, drinkers and onlookers vividly creates a scene of good-natured confusion. The lack of a central motif reinforces the work’s naturalistic appearance, yet the composition is very carefully constructed around a group of selected incidents. A key hangs on the back wall of...
probably 1674
Oil on canvas
73.3 x 65.9cm
P158
Images and text © Wallace Collection, 2017

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The Wallace Collection
Permanent collection