Jan Steen's scene shows a morally questionable love game full of hidden symbols. Adultery, lust and vice are depicted critically but humorously. Behind the seemingly everyday depiction lies a multi-layered moral commentary.
Lust and warning
The setting is the interior of a Dutch town house in the so-called 'Golden Age'. According to the terms of the era, orderly conditions should prevail here, especially in moral terms. However, the young couple dominating the scene as if on a theater stage is far removed from the latter. The woman points to the parrot cage, a symbol of imprisonment in marriage to an older man who is sitting apart in the garden reading a letter. The suitor, on the other hand, sees himself close to his goal, as the cracked nut suggests.
Warnings against immoral conduct are part of the core content of statements that profoundly influenced Dutch painting in the 17th century. Themes and motifs that originate from the sacred pictorial tradition now live on in a secular guise, such as the fate of the prodigal son, who almost plunges to his doom through licentiousness and extravagance. A central theme is lust (luxuria in Latin), always associated with intemperance, one of the seven “deadly sins”. The constant attacks by the moral authorities of the time, reflected in prints and paintings, are directed at this sin as well as excessive smoking and drinking.
These admonitions are presented with the help of a hidden code: the pewter pot in the man's hand, an unmistakable indication of male lechery, the parrot cage, the bed, the brazier with the clay pipe or the broken glass, a sign of careless housekeeping and living.
Like no other artist, they have become proverbial for Jan Steen's painterly work. Born in Leiden, the painter also ran an inn alongside his painting. He must have been very familiar with the customs of the time.
Text: Ulrich Becker