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, admittedly, but the other youngsters are following their elders' example. And the dog doesn't want to be left out.  

Steen's comic scene, however, carries a moral: The sheet of paper pinned to the mantelpiece bears the inscription: "As the old sing, so shall the young twitter." Still, The Merry Family do uphold certain standards (this is Holland after all): Look at the wonderful creases in the nicely washed and ironed tablecloth. 

Steen liked a moral tale, the fun and games disguising a lot of bad behaviour, of various sorts. This next painting is called The Merry Threesome in English, and they're all amusing themselves in their different ways. The unsuspecting well-dressed man (though in rather old-fashioned costume) is lapping up the attention of a pretty young woman (you'll note the suggestively positioned pipe). Her aged accomplice plies him with another drink, but he will soon discover he has been the victim of a dastardly crime: The girl is slipping her hand unnoticed into his purse. The Dutch title translates as The Robbed Violinist.

Steen depicted himself as the unwary musician with the silly grin. This was one of various roles he assumed in his pictures. His children, spouses and friends were also models and he often was inspired by the inns he grew up in and later ran, during something of an itinerant career in various towns and cities across Holland. Leiden's most famous son -- Rembrandt -- also portrayed himself on canvas frequently. Steen, though, had a different agenda.

He painted himself again, as a laughing man in an opulent interior, enjoying oysters and a glass of wine, while in the background through an open door a couple of men play a backgammon-like game of chance. That one's called 'Easy Come, Easy Go'.

More reprehensible behaviour in the painting below, and unfortunately, it's a poor little kitten that's the victim. The boys delight in making it dance on its hind legs to the tune played by the girl. And the barking excited dog no doubt adds to its fears. An old man peering in through a window looks on disapprovingly.

Kids, eh? What they need is an education. Though maybe not with Mr Grumpy, who's got his wooden spoon ready to rap them over the knuckles if they don't get it right. The poor lad in blue in the centre of the picture is clearly having a torrid time, snivelling away. "If I've told you once, I've told you a hundred times," teacher seems to be saying. The girl (modelled on Eva, Steen's eldest daughter) looks on quite concerned; will it be her turn for the spoon next? 

One child in a red cap seems to have had enough and is already off home. But there's always the class swot, doggedly getting on with his own work like the lad in the foreground. 

Anyway, when St Nicholas comes (not at Christmas, but at the start of December, this being Holland), he'll know whether you've been naughty or nice. And there will be tears before bedtime.... 

The festivities are well under way; there are sweets, gingerbread and baked treats. The little girl in the foreground is delighted by her new doll (it's John the Baptist; this is a Catholic family, like Steen's), and her brother seems pleased with his stick for kolf, a golf-like game. But the lad on the left hasn't got anything to laugh about; the shoe he's left out for presents has only got a birch twig in it. 

Amid all this overexcitement, let's turn to something calmer. The woman smiles gently as she plays the cittern, a popular string instrument of the Golden Age, smaller than a lute. It's a painting in which Steen has paid great attention to a meticulous reproduction of the details of the face and hands and the cittern itself.

She's dressed very respectably, very soberly, hair covered by a hood. That coy smile, though, is rather provocative, isn't it? If you were a 16th-century Dutchman, or Dutchwoman, you might be thinking: Is she quite decent? 

But if you knew your Bible you'd be certain of what was going on in the picture below. To us, this scene at first appears to depict an extended family's day out in the countryside, until we notice the empty chest on the right.

Then there's the man in armour, spears pointing into the sky and two camels. Something does appear to have gone missing, as two men on the left are also looking for something. It is actually a scene from the Book of Genesis, Laban Searching for the Idols Stolen by Rachel. The camels highlight the point in the story that Rachel is sitting on a camel's saddlebag in which she has hidden the religious items she has stolen from her father. Her large blue skirt and pink flowing cloak plus the toddler in her arms cover the booty. And she can't get up, because she's menstruating. Zoom in on the picture of this painting on the Lakenhal website and you may also get the impression that the camel on the right has the look of knowing exactly what's going on. 

There's a whole lot more to enjoy in this entertaining show, with plenty of explanation of Steen's career and quite a few paintings by relatives and colleagues. It's not an all-encompassing retrospective -- the paintings seem to have been sourced only from Dutch collections -- but it's well worth a visit. 

Practicalities

At Home with Jan Steen -- 400 Years of Merrymaking is on at Museum De Lakenhal in Leiden until August 23. The gallery is open Tuesday to Sunday from 1000 to 1700. Full-price tickets, which include the  permanent collection and other displays, cost 16 euros and can be booked online here. Allow yourself 90 minutes for this show, which was reasonably busy, though not packed, when we visited on a Friday morning. The Lakenhal collection is surprisingly light on classic Dutch Golden Age paintings; the highlight is perhaps Lucas van Leyden's early 16th-century triptych of the Last Judgement. 

The Lakenhal, as you might expect, overlooks a canal on Oude Singel in the centre of Leiden, and it's just 10 minutes walk from Leiden Centraal rail station, with frequent connections from all over the Netherlands. Leiden is just over half an hour from Amsterdam, a quarter of an hour or less from The Hague. 

And later this year....

There'll be a small free Steen exhibition featuring international loans at the National Gallery of Ireland in Dublin, which has two canvases by him. Jan Steen: Sacred and Profane starts on November 21.

Images

Jan Steen (1626-1679), The Merry Family, 1668, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam 
Jan Steen, The Merry Threesome, c. 1670-72, Private collection on long-term loan to Museum De Lakenhal, Leiden
Jan Steen, Children Teaching a Cat to Dance, c. 1660-79, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Jan Steen, The Strict Schoolmaster, c. 1658-70, Private collection
Jan Steen, The Feast of St Nicholas, c. 1665-68, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam 
Jan Steen, Woman Playing the Cittern, c. 1662, Mauritshuis, The Hague

Jan Steen, Laban Searching for the Idols Stolen by Rachel, c. 1661, Museum De Lakenhal, Leiden