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Men Behaving Badly; Women and Children Too

When we visit the Netherlands or come across the Dutch abroad, we always feel they know how to relax and enjoy life. Visit Museum De Lakenhal in Leiden and you'll see in their latest exhibition that this joie de vivre has a long tradition. The gallery is looking back 400 years to the birth in the city of Jan Steen, who frequently painted his countrymen having a good time. And yes, on occasion, perhaps just a little bit too much of a good time.  In this show,  At Home with Jan Steen -- 400 Years of Merrymaking , you will discover why the Dutch use the expression "a Jan Steen household" for a home where, well, things are maybe just a bit too free and easy. This is the painting that sums it up: What a jolly time everyone is having in The Merry Family . To the accompaniment of music, they are indeed making merry: singing, drinking and smoking. All are taking part; the old, the young, and even a baby wielding a spoon. The baby's not partaking of the alcohol or tobacco, adm...
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Opening and Closing in December

It's the month before Christmas, and all through the house, there's not a lot stirring in terms of new exhibitions.

At the Wallace Collection in London, December 4 sees the opening of Forgotten Masters: Indian Painting for the East India Company. Curated by writer and historian William Dalrymple, this is the first show in the UK of works by Indian painters for the trading company that effectively ruled large parts of the subcontinent in the 18th and 19th centuries. Until April 19.

We've seen some superb exhibitions at the Kunsthalle in Hamburg in the past, and their new show brings together three really big names: Goya, Fragonard, Tiepolo. With around 100 works, the exhibition will examine the disparity of 18th-century art in an age of great political, technological and social change. December 13 to April 13.
And in Italy, the Palazzo dei Diamanti in Ferrara is devoting a show to Giuseppe De Nittis, the Italian painter closely associated with the French Impressionists. It's on from December 1 to April 13.

Last chance to see....

Two complementary shows are finishing at the Guildhall Art Gallery in the City of London. December 1 is the last day for Architecture of London, an exhibition that looks back at how artists have viewed the metropolis over four centuries, while The London that Never Was, a quirky free display on the buildings and projects that failed to get constructed, closes a week later.
And in Copenhagen, one of the best exhibitions of the year, a huge retrospective of the Danish Golden Age in the 19th century, ends its run at the National Gallery on December 8. It will be on again at the Petit Palais in Paris from April 28. 

Images

Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes, Don Tomás Pérez Estala, c. 1795. © Hamburger Kunsthalle/bpk, Photo: Elke Walford
Image of Fleet St taken from a 1967 Greater London Council report on the feasibility of introducing monorails in central London, London Metropolitan Archives (City of London)

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