Merry Company on a Terrace by Jan Steen in the Metropoliltan Museum of Art, February 2019

Merry Company on a Terrace, ca. 1670


Object Details

Artist: Jan Steen (Dutch, Leiden 1626–1679 Leiden)

Date: ca. 1670

Medium: Oil on canvas

Dimensions: 55 1/2 x 51 3/4 in. (141 x 131.4 cm)

Classification: Paintings

Credit Line: Fletcher Fund, 1958

Accession Number: 58.89


Another of Steen’s self-deprecating depictions of his own unruly household, this painting centers on the inviting figure of his wife, who looks out at the viewer with an empty wineglass in her hand. Steen, his face flushed with drink and a comic hat on his head, sits at the far left; next to him, with a sausage in his cap, is Hans Worst, the same theatrical figure depicted by Hals in a nearby work. To this day in the Netherlands, "a household by Jan Steen" remains proverbial for disorder and domestic chaos.

Text from: www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/437749