Jan Steen

A traveling mountebank pitches cures to a village crowd, a monkey on his shoulder. Jan Steen painted painters, drunks, taverns, and especially charlatans — the ordinary life he knew best as a tavernkeeper himself.

A Dutch family the morning after December 5th. One daughter clutches a saint's doll and refuses to share; a boy wails because his shoe held only a birch rod. The mother conceals a smile.

A household singing, drinking, smoking, children included — above, an inscription: "As the old sing, so pipe the young." A moralizing warning dressed as a party; Steen's signature register.