Jan Steen

Dutch, 1626–1679

BiographyJan Steen was born in Leiden probably in 1626; although the precise date of his birth is not known, in 1646 he was recorded as a student at Leiden University, aged twenty. He was a pupil of Nicolaes Knüpfer (ca. 1603-1655) in Utrecht, Adriaen van Ostade in Haarlem, and of the landscape painter Jan van Goyen in Leiden. Steen married van Goyen's daughter Margaretha (Grietje; d. 1669) in 1649. In March 1648, Steen was one of the first members of the newly-formed artist's guild of St. Luke in Leiden. He worked in The Hague from 1649 until 1654, then ran a brewery in Delft for a few years. Steen settled in Haarlem by 1661, but returned to Leiden upon the death of his father in 1670. He served as hoofdman (leader) of the Leiden guild in 1671-73, and as deken (dean) in 1674. Steen died in Leiden in 1679.

A highly productive painter of exceptional narrative and comic genius, Steen painted history paintings and some portraits in addition to his more well-known genre scenes. His engaging oeuvre is rich and varied, drawing upon pictorial tradition, literary sources, and popular culture, and always acknowledging the artist's own often wry and humorous view of the world.