Fantasy Interior with Jan Steen and the Family of Gerrit Schouten

Former Title:Easy Come, Easy Go

Artist: Jan Steen (Dutch, 1626 - 1679)

Date: ca. 1659-1660

Medium: Oil on canvas

Dimensions:

Unframed: 33 3/8 x 39 13/16 inches (84.77 x 101.12 cm)

Framed: 43 1/2 x 49 5/8 x 3 5/8 inches (110.49 x 126.05 x 9.21 cm)

Credit Line: Purchase: William Rockhill Nelson Trust

Object number: 67-8

Signed: None

On view

Current Location: G, 117

In Collection(s)

European Painting and Sculpture

Terms

DescriptionInterior scene with two dogs in center foreground, foot warmer, right middleground, left to right: Black servant placing silver pot in marble basin; velvet-covered side chair holding belt with sheathed sword; bowing boy offering peeled lemon on round salver to seated woman in gray with open book in lap; standing man behind her in front of fireplace addressing seated man; standing woman at clavichord with elaborately carved pedestal; another woman beyond clavichord playing lute, facing left. Tapestries on wall, rear, drawn aside at door, left, through which is seen woman laying table in front of leaded windows; octagonal table bearing tray and pitcher; gray stone fireplace, center, with column on each side, motto "discite mori" on top face, behatted skull with arrow on mantelpiece, above painting of warriors and elephants; right, tall cupboard with sculpture atop of Venus and putto flanked left, by infant Bacchus and right, Eros sharpening his bow.

Exhibition History

Exposition Néerlandaise de Beaux-Arts Organisée au Bénéfice de la Société néerlandaise de Bienfaisance à Bruxelles, Paris, 1882, no. 233.

Exposition Hollandaise. Tableaux, aquarelles et dessins anciens et modernes, Orangerie des Tuileries, Paris, 1921, no. 103.

Danse et Divertissements, Galerie Charpentier, Paris, 1948–1949, no. 200.

Jan Steen, Mauritshuis, The Hague, December 20, 1958–February 15, 1959, no. 41.

Paintings of 17^th Century Dutch Interiors, The Nelson Gallery of Art and Atkins Museum, Kansas City, MO, December 1, 1967–January 7, 1968, no. 20.

Haarlem: The Seventeenth Century, The Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, February 19–April 17, 1983, no. 114.

Great Dutch Paintings in America, Mauritshuis, The Hague, September 28, 1990–January 13, 1991; Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, February 14–May 12, 1991, no. 58.

Class Distinctions: Dutch Paintings in the Age of Rembrandt and Vermeer, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, October 11, 2015–January 18, 2016; The Nelson–Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, February 24, 2016–May 29, 2016, no. 29.

Gallery LabelJan Steen was known for his scenes of bawdy revelry, often with moral overtones. Here we see him dressed as a gentleman, gesturing towards a seated man who has recently been identified as Gerrit Schouten, a brewer from the Dutch town of Haarlem. Schouten, accompanied here by his son and daughters, owned a brewery called the Elephant. Steen creates a witty allusion to this fact by placing a painting of an elephant over the fireplace. Centered on the mantelpiece is a skeletal bust of Death, inscribed with Discite Mori (learn to die). This reminder that the pleasures of life are fleeting and that death will ultimately triumph is tempered by the inscription on the harpsichord: musica pellet curas, or music drives away care.

Provenance

Possibly Gerrit Schouten, ca. 1660;

Possibly by descent to his daughter, Cornelia Schouten, and her husband, William Schouten;

Possibly by descent to their daughter, Geertruyd Cornelia Schouten, and her husband, Matthijs van Bree;

Possibly by descent to their daughter, Cornelia Maria van Bree, and her husband, Pieter Tiarck;

Possibly by descent to their daughter, Maria Jacoba Tiarck, and her husband, Jean Baptiste, Count d’Oultremont, by ca. 1750;

Ferdinand, Count d’Oultremont (1840-1902), Brussels, by 1882- at least 1889 [1];

Léon Tabourier (d. ca. 1898), Paris, by 1898;

Henri-Georges Heugel (1844-1916), Paris, by 1898-1916;

By descent to his son, Jacques-Paul Heugel (1890-1979), Paris, 1916-1967;

Purchased from Heugel through Galerie Heim, Paris, by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1967.

NOTES:

[1] Kimberlee A. Cloutier-Blazzard, “The Elephant in the Living Room: Jan Steen’s Fantasy Interior as Parodic Portrait of the Schouten Family,” Aurora: The Journal of the History of Art XI (2010): 94n13, 95n13. Cloutier-Blazzard suggests the NAMA picture descended through the family along with four formal portraits of the Schoutens, from Gerrit Schouten to Maria Jacoba Tiarck’s 1750 marriage to Jean Baptiste, Count d’Oultremont. Galerie Heim sale documents list a second possible narrative, in which the d’Oultremont family came to possess the painting through Henrietta Adriana Ludovica Flora, Countess d’Oultremont, who in 1841 had a morganatic marriage to King William I of the Netherlands. See NAMA curatorial files. This painting was offered for sale by Ferdinand, Count d’Oultremont at Douze Tableaux Importants, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, June 27, 1889, lot 11, but failed to sell.

Published References

Abraham Bredius, “De Tentoonstelling te Brussel,” De Nederlandsche Spectator (1882): 183.

Exposition Néerlandaise de Beaux-Arts Organisée au Bénéfice de la Société néerlandaise de Bienfaisance à Bruxelles, exh. cat. (Brussels: Typographie et Lithographie E. Guyot, 1882), 92, as Intérieur.

Catalogue de Douze Tableaux Importants, Parmi Lesquels Deux très remarquables portraits par Rembrandt et autres oeuvres de Frans Hals, F. Mieris, Jan Steen, Q. Matsys, Rubens, Van Dyck, etc., Provenant de la Collection d'Oultremont, et don’t la vente aura lieu (Paris: Drouot, June 27, 1889), 18–19, (repro.), as Intérieur au XVIIe siècle.

Cornelis Hofstede de Groot, A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch Painters of the Seventeenth Century, Based on the Works of John Smith, ed. and trans. Edward G. Hawke, vol. 1 (London: Macmillan, 1907), 105, as An Interior.

Hippolyte Mireur, Dictionnaire des Ventes d'art Faites en France et à l'Étranger pendant les XVIII et XIX Siècles, vol. 7 (Paris: C. de Vincenti, 1912), 75, as Intérieur au XVIIe siècle.

Exposition Hollandaise. Tableaux, aquarelles et dessins anciens et modernes, exh. cat. (Paris: Orangerie des Tuileries, 1921), 10.

Abraham Bredius, Jan Steen (Amsterdam: Scheltema and Holkema, 1927), 52, (repro), as Deftig Gezelschap (Zoogen.: familie van Goyen).

U. Thieme and F. Becker, eds., Allgemeines Lexicon der bildenden Künstler von Antike bis zur Gegenwart, vol. 31 (Leipzig, 1937), 512, (repro.).

Danse et Divertissements exh. cat. (Paris: Galerie Charpentier, 1949), unpaginated, as La maison de Van Goyen.

Cornelis Wilhelmus de Groot, Jan Steen, beeld en woord (Utrecht: Dekker & Van de Vegt, 1952), 129–130.

Willem Martin, Jan Steen (Amsterdam: J.M. Meulenhoff, 1954), 14, 84n19, as De Familie van Goyen.

R. Keyszelitz, “Der ‘clavis interpretandi’ in der holländische Malerei des 17. Jahrhunderts” (PhD diss, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, 1956), 58–61.

A. Staring, De Hollanderse Thuis (‘S-Gravenhage: Martinus Nijhoff, 1956), 92, (repro).

A. B. de Vries and P.N.H. Domela Nieuwenhuis, Jan Steen (The Hague: Mauritshuis, 1959), 44–45, as De Familie van Goyen.

H. Van Hall, Portretten van Nederlandse beeldende Kunstenaars (Amsterdam: Swets en Zeitlinger, 1963), 315.

A.P. de Mirimonde, “La Musique dans les Allégories de l’Amour II: Eros,” Gazette des Beaux–Arts (May–June, 1967): 331, 334, (repro.).

Ralph T. Coe, Paintings of 17^th Century Dutch Interiors (Kansas City: The Nelson Gallery of Art and Atkins Museum, 1967), 8, 16, (repro.), as Interior with the Van Goyen Family.

“A Dutch Mannerist Memorial,” Time Magazine 91, no. 7 (February 16, 1968): 55, (repro.).

“Accessions of American and Canadian Museums. July – September 1967,” Art Quarterly 41 (1968), 93, 95, 98, (repro.).

Edwin M. Ripin, “The Couchet Harpsichord in the Crosby Brown Collection,” Metropolitan Museum Journal 2 (1969): 174, (repro.).

Michael Jaffé, “The Flemish and Dutch Schools,” Apollo 96, no. 130 (December 1972): 511, (repro.) [repr. in Denys Sutton, ed., William Rockhill Nelson Gallery, Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Kansas City (London: Apollo Magazine, 1972), 43, (repro.)].

Ross E. Taggart and G.L. McKenna, eds., Handbook of the Collections in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 5^th ed., vol. 1 (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1973), 116, (repro.).

Peter Thornton, “Back–Stools and Chaises à Demoiselles,” Connoisseur 185, no. 744 (February 1974): 100, (repro.).

Lyckle de Vries, Jan Steen, de schilderende Uilenspiegel (Amsterdam: Weert, 1976), 19, 406, (repro.).

Lyckle de Vries, “Jan Steen ‘de Kluchtschilder” (PhD diss., Rijksuniversiteit, 1977), 55, 163.

Peter Thornton, Seventeenth-Century Interior Decoration in England, France, and Holland (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1978), 98, (repro.).

Karel Braun, Alle tot nu toe bekende schilderijen van Jan Steen (Rotterdam: Lekturama, 1980), no. B-110, pp. 170 - 171, (repro.), as Voornaam Gezelschap.

Peter C. Sutton, “The Life and Art of Jan Steen,” Philadelphia Museum of Art Bulletin 78 (1982–1983): 23n3.

Frima Fox Hofrichter, ed., Haarlem: The Seventeenth Century, exh. cat. (New Brunswick, New Jersey: The Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum, 1983), 127–128, (repro.), as The Van Goyen Family.

Peter C. Sutton, ed., Von Frans Hals bis Vermeer. Meisterwerke holländischer Genremalerei, exh.cat. (Berlin: Fröhlich and Kaufmann, 1984), 370n8.

Peter C. Sutton, A Guide to Dutch Art in America (Washington D.C.: The Netherlands–American Amity Trust, 1986), 124–125, (repro.).

Lucas van Dijck and Ton Koopman, Het Klavecimbel in de Nederlandse Kunst tot 1800. The Harpsichord in Dutch Art before 1800 (Zutphen, Netherlands: Walburg Pers, 1987), unpaginated, (repro.)

Ben Broos, ed., Great Dutch Paintings from America, exh. cat. (The Hague: Mauritshuis, 1990), 414– 418 (repro.), as Fantasy Interior with Jan Steen and Jan van Goyen.

Jed Jackson, Art: A Comparative Study (Dubuque, IA: Kendall and Hunt, 1994), 178, (repro.).

Pascal-Francois Bertrand, Fabienne Joubert, and Amaury Lefebure, Histoire de la Tapisserie en Europe, du Moyen Age a Nos Jours (Paris: Flammarion, 1995), 156, (repro.), as La Famille Van Goyen.

Mariet Westermann, “Jan Steen, Frans Hals, and the Edges of Portraiture,” Netherlands Yearbook for History of Art 46 (1995): 320–321, as Fantasy Interior with Jan van Goyen and his family.

H. Perry Chapman, Wouter Th. Kloek and Arthur K. Wheelock, Jr., Jan Steen: Painter and Storyteller, exh. cat. (Washington D.C.: National Gallery of Art, 1996), 20, (repro.), as Fantasy Interior with Jan Steen and Jan van Goyen Family Portrait).

Mariet Westermann, The Amusements of Jan Steen: Comic Painting in the Seventeenth Century (Zwolle: Waanders, 1997), 268–271, 275n70, 275n74, 275n78, (repro.), as Fantasy Interior with Jan van Goyen.

William Zimmer, “Recording Daily Life, in Glorious Details,” The New York Times (October 21, 2001): 10–11 (repro.).

Frans Grijzenhout and Niek van Sas, The Burgher of Delft: A Painting by Jan Steen (Amsterdam: Rijksmuseum, 2006), 52–53, as Imaginary Interior with Gerrit Gerritsz Schouten’s family.

Kimberlee A. Cloutier-Blazzard, “The Elephant in the Living Room: Jan Steen’s Fantasy Interior as Parodic Portrait of the Schouten Family,” Aurora: The Journal of the History of Art 6 (2010): 91–119, as Fantasy Interior.

Ronni Baer, ed., Class Distinctions: Dutch Paintings in the Age of Rembrandt and Vermeer (Boston: Museum of Fines Arts, Boston, 2015), 16, 19, 70, 91, 134, 137, 147, 151, 304n43, (repro.), as Fantasy Interior with Jan Steen and the Family of Gerrit Schouten.

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