The Merry Family
1668 · Oil on canvas · Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
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About this work
- Artist
- Jan Steen (1626–1679)
- Year
- 1668
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Original size
- 110.5 × 141 cm
- Collection
- Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
- Movement
- Dutch Golden Age
A whole household is making a racket. The father sings with his glass raised, the mother and grandmother read from a sheet of music, a man plays the bagpipes, a boy at the window blows a horn, children puff on long clay pipes, and in front of the table a toddler is given a swig of wine straight from the jug. A dog, pots and a frying pan litter the floor. The slip of paper pinned to the mantelpiece carries the proverb that gives the picture its point: as the old sing, so pipe the young. Children copy what their parents do, and this lot are learning fast. Jan Steen painted it in 1668, signing and dating it, and the proverb was a favourite he treated several times. The Rijksmuseum has owned it since the nineteenth century; it is one of the most-quoted images of the disorderly household that made Steen's name a Dutch byword.
This exhibition-poster edition shows the whole work beneath original typography set in-house. The original is in the public domain.
Details & materials
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About this design
The Madten promise
A fine-art print
The same artwork as a clean fine-art print — the image shown large with a minimal caption.
The full-bleed edition
The same plate printed edge-to-edge, filling the whole sheet — bold and immersive.
