More than a dozen light-skinned men, women, and children eat, drink, talk, and make music around a dancing couple under an arbor in this horizontal painting. Most of the people are dressed in muted tones of green, gray, and black. The patio-like space is enclosed by a railing along the back and a half wall to our right. Sage-green vines and leaves covering the roof-like trellis hang down. Ten men and women sit or stand closely around a long table along the left, next to the exterior wall of a red brick building. A woman sitting in a wooden chair at the end of the table closest to us wears a…
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The Dancing Couple

Jan Steen (Dutch, 1625/1626 - 1679)

1663

Medium
oil on canvas
Classification
Painting
Dimensions
overall: 102.5 x 142.5 cm (40 3/8 x 56 1/8 in.) ; framed: 131.4 x 171.8 cm (51 3/4 x 67 5/8 in.)
Culture
Dutch
Museum
National Gallery of Art, CNE-B
Credit line
Widener Collection
Rights
Public domain (NGA Open Access, CC0), as the museum states it.
Who can see it
Teens profiles and older: its subject is for older viewers (war, death, the Passion, drink or the like). How works are placed

View at the National Gallery of Art

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