p. 106-110 Jan Steen
106 MUSEUM OF AMSTERDAM.
..., like chapters in the same pantagruellian farce.
The Interiors with families, where everyone, from the grandfather to the toddlers, celebrates together: Three Kings, St. Nicholas, the feast of the Good Saint, the feast of the Good God and the Good Devil,1 where the table is always set in the middle and covered with hams and jugs: on the old man's lap, a small child jumps around in a shirt and crash cap; a baby is given the breast by the plump young mother; the father teaches one of his boys the art of smoking. But they all have a glass in one hand.
Sometimes the scene unfolds between a married couple getting drunk, while enjoying a tête-à-tête; but while they are singing at the table, the children are breaking down the whole house, and through a half-open door, the meisjie (the meschine, the maid) can be seen in the background making love to her beau.
Sometimes the husband and wife sleep side by side, close together, but each turned on his side, one leaning against the table, the other turned over in her chair; or the husband reads, and the bored wife falls asleep.
Sometimes the wife is laughing with her lover when the old husband arrives.
The Weddings are part of this family comedy. With a very smart and well-to-do old man, the wedding attendants mockingly push the young bride, fresh and lively peasant, who hesitates "to take...
107 JAN STEEN.
... the plunge". Or the bride and groom are both young and fond of each other; but some smoker, sitting on a barrel, grins as he watches them pass, wondering how long it will last.
The Orgies, – the chapter of Bacchus, – interiors of inns, where men drink and shout; but at the door comes a woman laden with children to call her drunkard, who pays no attention to them. Outdoor fairs, where people dance, where we play bowls and skittles, where we roll on sheaves, where we play games under trellises. All fun and games, no worries! We only have this much fun at Rabelais.
The Doctors, charlatans, and alchemists. The love doctor – the chapter of Venus – is above all the triumph of Jan Steen. It is not so much the doctor about whom he jokes, but female love that he highlights. It is always about a beautiful girl who does not look sick and has not turned pale by chance.
Sometimes the old doctor is very serious and seems to consult his conscience in good faith to remedy such sadness, which is fortunately temporary. The spectator can easily guess the cause of the illness – from a love bill, crumpled in front of the mirror, – from a small portrait in a locket that the girl had not quite managed to hide under her pillow. Isn't this as much a comedy as Molière's, in the scenes where Arnolphe smugly ...
108 MUSEUM OF AMSTERDAM.
... listens to the confidences and stories of young Horace, while the theater-goer understands Agnès' deception?
At other times, the doctor, who knows all about the affair, smiles at the dueña who hides Diafoirus' instrument under her apron and indicates with a grotesque sign the way to save the failing beauty.
Usually, during these serious consultations, during which the doctor looks at the sun through a mysterious jug, some servant arrives with a paper more salubrious than any pharmaceutical medicine; or you catch a glimpse through a window of a wandering young cavalier on a rampage who will soon come in to complete the cure.
In certain complicated and desperate cases, Jan Steen's remedy is a pie brought with a large amphora and beautiful crystal glasses. For example, when an old Dandin is looking after the patient. The idea is to kill time until the good man leaves to do his business. The lover is not far away.
Besides merry bohemians and young sentimental girls in low heels, as they were called in the xvith century, schoolchildren are still Jan Steen's favorites. His educational system, like his medical system, was based on nature and freedom. Nothing useless is taught in his Schools, for the magister usually sleeps; and the young citizens teach themselves to make stew with their ...
Interleaved page (1/2)
Koedijk, p. 101 – in the van Loon collection, one of his best pictures.2
Born at Zaandam 1681. 3 Protected by Peter the Great.4
There is usually only a single figure in his paintings
Basan, Dict. of Engravers, mentions him as having made engravings after Metsu and others. 5
Bartsch does not cite him.
Some of his pictures have been seen: Dirk Versteeg sale 1823, an effect of light
(Kaarslicht) – 51 fl.6 – Brentano Sale, an Interior, 105 fl.7 – at a sale in Amsterdam 1817, 2 important interiors, the one with a man - and many accessories, 940 fl; – the other, a man weighing gold, a woman seated near the chimney/fireplace, while a servant lays the fire, 510 fl (Immerzeel) 8
1 Coedyck Fesch sale9
? There is 1 Steen dated 1641 – Smith no. 4610
Smith catal. 68 de Hooch paintings11 – of which Waagen cites 9 in England:12
Robert Peel: 1 from the Pourtales collection13
1 signed P.D.H. 165814
Stafford House (duke of Sunderland) – 115
Lord Ashburton – 116
Hope – 1 (Smith no. 2)17
Luton House (marquis of Bute) 1 signed P.D.H. 1658 (Smith)18
Buckingham – 3, of which one signed P.D.H. 165819
Viardot p. 446 – the return from market, in the Hermitage20
p. 274 - one owned by Czernin (van der Meer?)21
PH – monogr. at Cornelissen22
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L’Eglon van der Neer, p. 104, could not be by him – unless the date 1644 is wrong – since he was born in 1643. But the subject seems to me to be typical of him.23
Eglon often did the figures in v. d. Heijden.24
One of his masterpieces – owned by de Kat.25
Stolberg 61: The angel announces the birth of the Saviour to the Shepherds,
signed Cuijp.26 - ---my Holy Family in the stable.27
De Gerritz again, 3 in the Northwick cat. 1859:
Landscape with hunters
portrait of the wife of Aalbert, signed and dated (what date?)
and portrait of Mayor28
At Leroy d’Etiolles: Militia, signed. bought by M. Dawson, English.29
At d’Aigremont: Portrait d’Adr. Pannier
Aetatis 56
JG Cuyp fecit
Ano. 1647.30
Two in the museum of Metz JG Cuyp fecit Ao 1649
Portrait of man and woman, lifesize. (Michel)31
109 JAN STEEN.
... books or to draw the silhouette of the snoring pedagogue on the wall. Oh, what good little Panurges those will be!
It is not that Jan Steen never chose serious subjects, or biblical and heroic compositions. He really did! Didn't he depict the Wedding at Cana several times? What a wonderful excuse to celebrate the miracle that turned water into wine! It is the only miracle in all of Holy Scripture that seems to have touched Jan Steen. There is not one of his fairs where we get more drunk than in his Wedding at Cana.
He even painted a Roman, deliberately chosen to fit his strict morals. Yes, he had fun painting: Scipio's Continence!32 And one day he even painted a Greek: Diogenes looking for a man.33 You can imagine the crowd of hooligans and children laughing at the philosopher, who with his lantern could not find a wise man in this gang of fools.
After all these scenes in which human life is exposed from its sarcastic side, in which mockery, passions and even vices are shown, there is no doubt that Jan Steen cannot but be damned. He certainly deserves to be in the company of Panurge, Sganarelle, Sancho, Falstaff, Pangloss and the last of these great damned, Robert Macaire and Vautrin.
Not only in his characters, but also in the way he portrays them, Jan Steen still has ...
110 MUSEUM OF AMSTERDAM.
... that quality of Molière: an extreme clarity; he is so expressive and simple that everyone understands him, ordinary people, and children as well as the educated and sophisticated. He does not need to put banners above his heroes, like mystic painters do; you know what they are saying and thinking, and you can see very well what they are doing.
Still, he has a habit of pasting beautiful, edifying sayings on the walls of his inns: "Like father, like son. – When the old have fun, so have the young, etc." It should be added here that Jan Steen's burlesque inventions, far from being the glorification of the follies he loved to tell, au fond always have a moral meaning. Intemperance, libertinism, laziness, disorder, are always punished in one way or another by a breakthrough in the painting. Absolutely like Marquis de Sade or Bouilly.
When it comes to the craft of painting, no one does it better than him. Reynolds,34 – what a surprise! – Reynolds found analogies to Raphael! "Jan Steen, said the English painter, has a has a vigorous and masculine style, which even approaches Raphael's draughtsmanship. He has shown the greatest skill in composition and in rendering light and shadow, as well as great truth in the expression and character of his figures."35
After this quote, I in turn venture to say that ...
Notes
1 The Feast of the Good Lord and the Good Devil is another name for the Feast of Saint Nicholas in France; it refers to the figure of Saint Nicholas and his assistant, Father Fouettard, who sow chaos among disobedient children. See, for instance: https://sint-nicolaas.eu/pere-fouettard/ (accessed 10 November 2025).
2 In the ‘List of paintings from the collection of Pieter van Winter’ (from which half was bequeathed to his daughter Anna Louisa Agatha van Winter, who married Willem van Loon) is one painting attributed to Nicolaes Koedijck (now Isaac Koedijck), see Priem 1997, p. 220, no. 85, Interior with figures at a table. Unidentified by Priem. The Van Loon collection was sold in 1878 to the English collector Lionel de Rothschild, yet the painting can neither be identified with those listed in Waterhouse 1967. It might be identical to a painting now attributed to Jacob Vrel, but considered to be by Koedijck until at least 1881: Dutch Interior, Brussels, Royal Museums for Fine Arts of Belgium, inv. no. 2826. With thanks to Ellis Dullaart.
3 This information on Koedijck, the auctions and the proceeds of the Koedijck pictures up to 1817 (below), is taken from Immerzeel 1842-1843, vol. 2 (1843), p. 122.
4 Tsar Peter the Great is Zaandam's most famous visitor: he is said to have stayed for a week in 1697 in the so-called Tsar Peter House in Zaandam. It is now a museum.
5 Basan 1791, vol. 1, p. 258.
6 Sale Dirk Versteegh, Amsterdam, 3-5 November 1823, Lugt 10531, no. 18.
7 Sale Joseph Augustinus Brentano, Amsterdam, 13 May 1822, Lugt 10249, no. 173.
8 These paintings are now considered to be characteristic works by Cornelis de Man: Goldweigher with a Woman and a Boy in an Interior Beside the Fireplace, c. 1665-1675, private collection; Interior with a Scholar Wearing a Japanese Robe, c. 1668-1675, in sale London (Sotheby’s), 5 December 2007, no. 31. Sale Jurriaans, Amsterdam, 28 August 1817, Lugt 9211, no. 31, 32 resp. Immerzeel, and consequently also Thoré-Bürger, has mixed up the sale prices of the paintings: the Goldweigher fetched fl. 940 and the one with a single man, brought up fl. 510. With thanks to Ellis Dullaart.
9 Sale collection Cardinal Fesch, Rome (George), 17-24 March 1845 (Lugt 17682), p. 36, no. 46-94.
10 Smith 1829-1842, vol. 4 (1833), p. 14-15, no. 46. This is a very early dated painting, as Steen was born in 1626. This comment aligns probably with Thoré-Bürger's discussion of Jan Steen's stylistic development, below on p. 111-112, where he attempts to explain the disparity in quality in Steen’s paintings. One of the questions Thoré-Bürger raises is whether Steen still had to learn the trade, and consequently whether the lower-quality paintings originate from Steen's early period. Thoré-Bürger should therefore examine this early painting to see if his hypothesis is correct.
11 Smith 1829-1842, vol. 4 (1833), p. 219-241. On Pieter de Hooch, see above, p. 97-101.
12 According to the index in Waagen 1854, vol. 1, there should be 12 paintings by De Hooch. Thoré-Bürger only refers to eight of these below. He left out Waagen 1854, vol. 2, Letter XV, p. 130: possibly Skittle Players in a Garden Near a Manor, c. 1659-1663, Aylesbury, Waddesdon Manor, inv. no. 62. He also missed the two paintings listed in vol. 2, Letter XVII, p. 227, in the collection of Hon. Edmund Phipps: an interior with a mother feeding her child (Sutton 1980, p. 126, no. C30), and a concert (possibly: Company making music in an interior, 1684, in sale London (Christie's), 9 December 2009, no. 146); and the one in vol. 3, Letter. XXVI, p. 222, from the collection Hadzor, ‘A man and woman looking at a dog; also a maid with a child’. The index of vol. 4 (1857), p. 539, lists another six paintings by De Hooch, in the collections of ‘Marquis of Hertford, Mr. Baring, Lord Overstone, Mr. Walter, Lord Enfield and Mr. Mildmay’. These are not mentioned in the German edition (Waagen 1837-1839).
13 Probably: Pieter de Hooch, Woman Drinking with Two Men, c. 1658, London, National Gallery, inv. no. NG834; Waagen 1854, vol. 1, Letter XII, p. 403.
14 Pieter de hooch, Mother and Child in a Courtyard, 1658, London, National Gallery, inv. no. NG 835; Waagen 1854, vol. 1, Letter XII, p. 403.
15 This should be: the Duke of Sutherland. Pieter de Hooch, The Bedroom, c. 1658-1660, Washington (D.C.), National Gallery of Art, inv. no. 1942.9.33; Waagen 1854, vol. 2, Letter XIV, p. 71.
16 Waagen 1854, vol. 2, Letter XV, p. 105. This painting was burnt (Sutton 1980, p. 79-80, no. 22) and only an eigtheenth-century copy documents its appearance: possibly Cornelis van Noorde, Woman and Child in a Street in Delft, London, art dealer Duits 7 co, by 1950.
17 Pieter de Hooch, Interior With a Young Woman Drinking, Two Men and a Maid, 1658, Paris, Musée du Louvre, inv. no. RF 1974-29; Waagen 1854, vol. 2, Letter XV, p. 119; Smith 1829-1842, vol. 4 (1833), p. 219-220, no. 2.
18 Pieter de Hooch, A Soldier Paying a Landlady in an Inn, 1658, Isle of Bute, Mount Stuart House; Waagen 1854, vol. 3, Letter XXXIII, p. 477; Smith 1829-1842, vol. 4 (1833), p. 219, no. 1.
19 Pieter de Hooch, Card Players in a Sunlit Room, 1658, London, Royal Collection Trust – Buckingham Palace, inv. no. RCIN405951; Waagen 1854, vol. 2, Letter XIII, p. 10-11. The other two, A Woman Spinning and A Lady at the Harpsichord, cannot be identified.
20 Probably: Pieter de Hooch, Seated Woman With Maid on a Terrace, c. 1657-1659, St. Petersburg, State Hermitage Museum, inv. no. 943; Viardot 1844, p. 446.
21 Johannes Vermeer, The Art of Painting, c. 1666-1669, Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum, inv. no. 9128; Viardot 1844, p. 274. See p. 100 above.
22 Sale Comte R. de Cornélissen, Brussels (Le Roy), 11-13 May 1857, Lugt 23598, no. 30-31. In both entries, no signature or monogram is mentioned. So, Thoré-Bürger must have seen the paintings himself in Brussels. For the three paintings by Pieter de Hooch that Hofstede de Groot mentions as coming from the collection R. de Cornélissen, no monogram is mentioned either (Hofstede de Groot 1907-1928, vol. 1 (1907), no. 65, 136, 237a).
23 See p. 104 above, where Thoré-Bürger also has added in handwriting: 'he was born in 1643! it is 1694’. So first, Thoré-Bürger wrote on this page and later, when he had read the new edition of the Rijksmuseum catalogue from 1859 (), he noted down on p. 104 what he had to change.
24 With many thanks to Eddy Schavemaker (e-mail 4 November 2025); according to him this statement comes from eighteenth-century French sale catalogues, for instance: sale Randon de Boisset, Paris (Rémy, Julliot), 27 February-25 March 1777, Lugt 2652, no. 134, as by Jan van der Heyden, the figures by Eglon van der Neer and Adriaen van de Velde.
25 Eglon van der Neer, Woman at a Virginal With a Cittern on Her Lap, Accompanied By a Man, 1669, Rotterdam, Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, inv. no. 1585; Kramm 1857-1864, vol. 3 (1859), p. 837.
26 Sale Andreas Graf zu Stolberg-Stolberg, Hannover (Charles Rumpler), 31 October-November 1859, Lugt 25060, no. 61. According to the annotations by Thoré-Bürger, signed: ‘Cŭijp’. Sold for 495 Th.
27 A painting by Aelbert or Benjamin Cuyp depicting the Holy Family is not mentioned in Jowell 2003.
28 Sale Lord Northwick, Cheltenham (Phillips), 26 July-30 August 1859, Lugt 25025, no. 246, 454, 1805. Not identified in Chong 1992/1994, nor Paarlberg et al. 2002.
29 Sale collection Jean-Jacques-Joseph Leroy d'Étiolles, Paris (Febvre), 21-22 February 1861, Lugt 26022, no. 17.
30 Probably: Jacob Gerritsz. Cuyp, Portrait of Adriana Passier, 1647, Amersfoort, Dutch Cultural Heritage Agency, inv. no. NK3106. This painting was in the possession of Thoré-Bürger, see Jowell 2003, p. 95, note 231, ill. 66, p. 97, note 242.
31 Jacob Gerritsz. Cuyp, Portrait of a Man, Aged 33, 1649; Portrait of a Woman, Aged 52, 1649, Metz, Musée des Beaux-Arts; Michel 1868, p. 21-22. Since no earlier catalogue by Michel appears to exist, it is likely that Thoré-Bürger knew Emile Michel personally. See for Jacob Gerritsz. Cuyp above, p. 101-102.
32 For example: Jan Steen, The Continence of Scipio, Rye (Sussex), Whitefriars Fine Arts (reported 1977); see Kirschenbaum 1977, p. 142-143, no. 83.
33 Smith 1829-1842, vol. 4 (1833), p. 4, no. 12 mentions a painting depicting Diogenes. It is also listed in Kirschenbaum 1977, p. 142, no. 82, yet without any further or more recent information.
34 The comma after Reynolds is crossed out.
35 Reynolds/Mount 1781, p. 111.