Artist: Jan Steen (1625/1626–1679)
Title: Beware of Luxury (“In Weelde Siet Toe”)
Date: circa 1663
Medium: oil on canvas
Dimensions: height: 105 cm (41.3 in); width: 145 cm (57 in)
Collection: Kunsthistorisches Museum
What I love about this painting:
Jan Steen lampoons family life in this riotous scene. Mother is taking a well-deserved nap, and the family is running wild, drinking to excess and partying like it was 1599. Grandma ignores the rumpus and instead, she is lecturing the Reverend on doctrine. The house is trashed, and the dog is on the table eating the pie. The baby is playing with the mother’s pearls. The oldest daughter’s suitor is sitting with his leg over her lap is a visual nod to promiscuity. “Getting his leg over her” was slang for premarital canoodling.
Although each of the many characters and every element of set dressing is realistically depicted, we know this is not a portrayal of a real moment in the artist’s life. We are presented with a theatrical drama here, a situation that is staged and satirized for our entertainment.
The Age of the Puritan had swept across Europe and while it was waning in the mid-seventeenth century, puritanism had a large influence on life in Holland as much as elsewhere.
This painting is a wonderful visual exhortation reminding the good people to live a sober life. Steen himself was not a puritan, as he was born into a family of brewers and ran taverns and breweries off and on throughout his life. But he did need to sell his paintings as he was never a successful businessman, and his allegorical paintings were quite popular.
About the Artist, via Wikipedia:
Jan Havickszoon Steen (c. 1626 – buried 3 February 1679) was a Dutch Golden Age painter, one of the leading genre painters of the 17th century. His works are known for their psychological insight, sense of humour and abundance of colour.
In 1648 Jan Steen and Gabriël Metsu founded the painters’ Guild of Saint Luke at Leiden. Soon after he became an assistant to the renowned landscape painter Jan van Goyen (1596–1656), and moved into his house on the Bierkade in The Hague. On 3 October 1649, he married van Goyen’s daughter Margriet, with whom he would have eight children. Steen worked with his father-in-law until 1654, when he moved to Delft, where he ran the brewery De Slang (“The Snake”) for three years without much success. After the explosion in Delft in 1654 the art market was depressed, but Steen painted A Burgomaster of Delft and his daughter. It does not seem to be clear if this painting should be called a portrait or a genre work.
Steen lived in Warmond, just north of Leiden, from 1656 until 1660 and in Haarlem from 1660 until 1670 and in both periods he was especially productive. In 1670, after the death of his wife in 1669 and his father in 1670, Steen moved back to Leiden, where he stayed the rest of his life. When the art market collapsed in 1672, called the Year of Disaster, Steen opened a tavern. In April 1673 he married Maria van Egmont, who gave him another child. In 1674 he became president of the Saint Luke’s Guild. Frans van Mieris (1635–1681) became one of his drinking companions. He died in Leiden in 1679 and was interred in a family grave in the Pieterskerk. [1]
Credits and Attributions:
IMAGE: Beware of Luxury by Jan Steen, ca. 1663. Wikimedia Commons contributors, “File:Jan Steen 004b.jpg,” Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Jan_Steen_004b.jpg&oldid=617576422 (accessed November 15, 2024)
[1] Wikipedia contributors, “Jan Steen,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jan_Steen&oldid=1249713624 (accessed November 15, 2024).
Life in the Realm of Fantasy 