Jan steen biography

17th-century Dutch painter

For the steamship, see SS Jan Steen.

Jan Havickszoon Steen (c.&#; – buried 3 February ) was a Dutch Golden Age painter, one of the leading genre painters of the 17th century. His works are known for their psychological insight, sense of humour and abundance of colour.

Life

Steen was born in Leiden, a town in Southern Holland, where his well-to-do, Catholic family were brewers who ran the tavern The Red Halbert for two generations. Steen's father even leased him a brewery of his own in Delft from the years until He was the eldest of eight or more children. Like his even more famous contemporary Rembrandt van Rijn, Jan Steen attended the Latin school and became a student in Leiden. Though no official records of Steen's artistic training are preserved, contemporary sources tell us he received his painterly education from three men, Nicolaes Knupfer (–), a German painter of historical and figurative scenes in Utrecht, Adriaen van Ostade, and Jan van Goyen, who would later become his father-in-law. Influences of Knupfer can be found in Steen's use of composition and colour. Another source of inspiration was Isaac van Ostade, a painter of rural scenes, who lived in Haarlem.

In Jan Steen and Gabriël Metsu founded the painters' Guild of Saint Luke at Leiden. Soon after he became an assistant to the renowned landscape painter Jan van Goyen (–), and moved into his house on the Bierkade in The Hague. On 3 October , he married van Goyen's daughter Margriet, with whom he would have eight children. Steen worked with his father-in-law until , when he moved to Delft, where he ran the brewery De Slang ("The Snake") for three years without much success. After the explosion in Delft in the art market was depressed, but Steen painted A Burgomaster of Delft and his daughter. It does not seem to be clear if this painting should be called a p

Jan Steen was born in Leiden in He was the eldest son of Havick Steen (–70) and Elisabet Capiteyn (–69), the daughter of a town clerk. The couple was Catholic and had at least eight children. Havick gave his profession as grain merchant when the banns of his marriage were posted in , but as of he was working in the family-owned brewery, called the “Red Halberd.” In Havick and his wife drew up their will, in which they appointed each other heir to an estimated capital of 10, guilders. Steen, thus, came from an upper middle-class milieu. His artistic interest may have been aroused by his father’s uncle, Pieter Dircksz Steen (–after ), who was both a painter and a goldsmith. Furthermore, through the marriage of his aunt Maria Steen (–) with Justus Livius de Rechte (–49) in , he may also have been introduced in his early years to the work of Jan Lievens (&#x;74), Justus’s younger brother.

On 18 March Steen registered as master painter in the recently founded Guild of Saint Luke in Leiden, but had presumably already been active as a painter for some time. According to Arnold Houbraken, Jan van Goyen (–) was his teacher, as was later confirmed by Jacob Campo Weyerman. The latter also claims that Steen had trained earlier in Utrecht with Nicolaus Knüpfer (–55) and in Haarlem with Adriaen van Ostade (–84). Their information came from the Leiden painter Carel de Moor (–), a good friend of Steen.

More than a year after entering the Leiden painters’ guild, Steen turned up in The Hague, where he may have assisted his former teacher Van Goyen to produce his monochrome landscapes, which were in great demand in the Dutch Republic. According to Houbraken, Steen got along well with Van Goyen, and not just with him. Houbraken extensively and very humorously describes how Steen seduced and impregnated Van Goyen’s daughter Margriet (–69), and how he subsequently

One of the most prominent Dutch genre painters during The Dutch Golden Age of painting, Steen was known for his humor and vivid colors. He was born in the Netherlandish town of Leyden, home of several important painters, such as Gerard Dou ( – ), Gabriel Metsu ( – ) and Rembrandt ( – ). He trained as a painter in Utrecht with the German artist, Nicolaes Knupfer ( – ) and possibly with Adriaen van Ostade ( – ). Steen was also an assistant for his father-in-law to be, Jan van Goyen ( – ), the Dutch landscape artist.

His genre paintings were full of life, humor and insights into everyday life; some were famously cluttered with human untidiness. Works such as his, The Effects of Intemperance, contributed to his name being used in Dutch culture, as a “Jan Steen Household.” The artist traveled and worked throughout the Netherlands in towns such as Delft, Warmond and Haarlem, settling eventually back in Leyden. In his final years he acquired the position of president at the Guild of Saint Luke at Leyden.

Steen’s style was elevated in status to his contemporaries such as Vermeer ( – ), Frans Hals ( – ) and Rembrandt ( – ). His paintings often had a moral character about them, such as his work, Love Sickness, in which he warned of quack doctors taking advantage of the incurable ailment of love’s pains. Many of Steen’s messages were subtle and approached with light humor, though his works were also simple genre depictions of life’s enjoyments. An example of the latter can be seen in his work in the Uffizi Gallery, The Luncheon. Several of his genre works were set in taverns, quite common for the Dutch Golden Age, but a unique attribute to Steen is he actually tried to run a Tavern in Delft. Thankfully he was not overly successful there and continued to become a great painter of genre works, portraits, still-life, animals, and some religious, historical and mythological subjects. His depictions of children in several works are considered to be unrivaled by cont