The Merry Family
Also titled Het vrolijke huisgezin
Jan Havicksz. Steen (Leiden, ca. –1679)
1668
- Medium
- canvas, oil paint (paint)
- Classification
- painting
- Dimensions
- height 110.5 cm x width 141 cm
- Museum
- Rijksmuseum
- Credit line
- On loan from the City of Amsterdam (A. van der Hoop Bequest)
- Rights
- Public Domain Mark, 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
About this work
The entire family is in high spirits, creating a ruckus: father, mother, and grandmother sing loudly, the children join in, and they even puff on long pipes. The note on the mantelpiece hints that there is a lesson to be learned from this painting: ‘As the old sing, so shall the young twitter.’ What is to become of the children if their parents set the wrong example?
