A Party in the Open Air. Allegory on Conjugal Love

About this work

This miniature painting shows a scene teeming with detail in which men and women have gathered for an open-air party where the concept of love is at the heart of everything. Oliver was associated with the English court in the late 17th century and was among the pre-eminent miniature painters of the time. Oliver’s small miniature painting unfolds a scene full of detail. In a landscape setting with trees and cliffs in the background groups of men and women have gathered for an open-air party. A woman playing the lute and a man playing the flute provide musical accompaniment, and in the background some are engaged in a hunt for wild boar and other animals. In the foreground are two groups that represent polar opposites. To the right are men and women wearing colourful costumes embroidered in gold thread; the women’s bosoms are bared. To the left the women are demurely dressed in black. Between the two groups a couple meets in a heated embrace on the bare ground. The juxtaposition of these two clearly defined, separate groups of figures foregrounds how this scene is a moralising allegory, i.e. a cautionary tale about Christian, married love versus sensuous love, which at the…