Page:Hofstede de Groot catalogue raisonné, Volume 1, 1908.djvu/26

 2 JAN STEEN SFCT. Burgomaster of Delft and his Daughter" (878), now in Lord Penrhyn's collection, which has in the background the Oude Delft and the town of the Oude Kerk. He is casually mentioned in 1653 and 1658 as a con- tributor to the Leyden Guild of St. Luke. During the years 1661-69 he is repeatedly mentioned as a resident in Haarlem. From 1669 to his death, early in 1679, he lived in Leyden, where he obtained permission from the magistrates in November 1672 to keep a tavern in the street called the Langebrug. His first wife, Margaretha van Goyen, died at Haarlem in 1669; Steen was married again, 22nd April 1673, to Maria van Egmont, widow of the bookseller Nicolaes Herculens. Nothing need be said here as to the private life of Jan Steen, whom Houbraken represented as a dissolute man and an habitual drunkard. Since the appearance of the book by Westrheene, 'Etudes sur TArt en Hollands (1856), no further defence of Steen's character has been required. It must, however, be admitted that he was careless in money matters and lof a restless disposition ; this is shown by his many changes of abode between Leyden, The Hague, Delft, and Haarlem. As he could not earn enough by painting, he had to follow other occupations, first as a brewer and then as a tavern-keeper. But the large number of pictures painted by him shows that his brewing and tavern-keeping did not take up much of his time. The rapid growth of his fame is illustrated by two statements. First, there is the tradition, not altogether trustworthy, that the Archduke Leopold Wilhelm sent one of Steen's pictures (467) to Vienna as early as 1651. Secondly, there is an unpublished letter found by O. Granberg in Sweden which the Swedish agent, H. Appelboom, wrote on 1 3th July 1651 to Field-Marshal Wrangel, then acting as Swedish Governor-General of Pomerania ; Appelboom's letter was to accompany a consignment of Dutch pictures, among which there were as many as four by Jan Steen l (cf. 2*7, 115*, 115^5 and 88ifl). ^Although Jan, .Steen was one of the most versatile of the Dutch painters, his strength lies in one special department, that of humorous scenes from the life of the people. It is the life of the people in the fullest sense of the word the life of the great mass of the nation in joy and sorrow, at work, at table, at their beer or wine, in the song or dance, in sickness or saying grace, in the family festivals as well as in the public merrymakings. The pictures of subjects outside this field are excep- tional, having regard to the number and importance of the pictures of popular life. exception, as well as the wholly serious pictures, in which there is not a spark of humour. The fairly numerous pictures of Biblical, mytho- logical, or historical scenes become, in Jan Steen's hands, scenes from contemporary life. It is not that Jan Steen wished to caricature history. He has simply imagined the emotions that would be produced on the people of his day by scenes such as that of Moses striking water from the rock, the binding of Samson, the rage of Ahasuerus, the miracle at Cana, 1 The other pictures were by G. ter Borch, Js. van Duynen, A. van Beyeren, H. de Meyer, and W. van Diest.
 * ? The portraits and the representations of cultured society are the