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Lazarus and the Rich Man or “In Luxury Beware”
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Lazarus and the Rich Man or “In Luxury
Beware”ca. 1677
oil on canvas
80.3 x 64.8 cm
inscription and signature in dark paint, onstonework, lower center:“In weelde
ziet toe JSteen” (“JS” in ligature)
JS-106

Jan Steen(Leiden 1626 – 1679 Leiden)

How to cite
Kloek, Wouter. “Lazarus and the Rich Man or “In Luxury Beware”” (2017). In The Leiden Collection Catalogue, 3rd ed.
EditedbyArthurK.

Wheelock

Jr.

and

Lara

Yeager-Crasselt.

New

York,

2020–23.

https://www.theleidencollection.com/archive/ (archived December 2023).
A PDF of every version of this entry is available in this Online Catalogue's Archive, and the Archive is managed by apermanent URL. New versions are added only when a substantive change to the narrative occurs.

“In weelde siet toe” (In Luxury Beware), the proverb that inspired Jan Steen’s

Comparative Figures

painting, is literally set in stone on the bench in the foreground. Sitting on this bench
is an enticing Bacchanalian reveler, who, with grape vines encircling her head, strums
her cittern while gazing out evocatively at the viewer, as though inviting him to takepart in the merrymaking. The big boozer behind her, wearing a red hat crowned witha cock’s feather, smilingly raises a glass of wine in one hand while clutching a jug
close to his side with his other. The festive music provided by the woman, thebagpiper and the flute player could not have created a very harmonious sound, but
one senses that the quality of the music was not their principle concern.[1] Despite theFig 1. Jan Steen, “In Luxury Beware”,
1663, canvas, 105 x 145 cm,
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna,
791

woman’s come-hither look, the slashes on the large man’s blue pants and on thebagpipe player’s sleeves are consistent with sixteenth-century fashions, which reminds
the viewer that the scene is not taken from contemporary life, but is an allegorical
depiction of the proverb. In a similar fashion, the actions of the children—one ofwhom offers a morsel of cake to a barking dog while another holds up a bunch of© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Lazarus and the Rich Man or “In Luxury Beware”
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grapes—relate thematically to the proverb “Sine Cerere et Baccho friget Venus,”(Without Ceres and Bacchus, Venus would freeze). The proverb means that lovecannot flourish without food and drink.
The key to understanding the full thematic implications of the painting, however, is
not to be found in the foreground figures but on the terrace in the right background,
where Steen depicted the parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man (Luke 16:18–21).
Here Steen has followed a narrative model used by artists in the circle of Pieter
Aertsen (1508–75) and Joachim Beuckelaer (1533–74). In paintings by these artists,
the true meaning of a scene is only revealed upon discovering the significance ofseemingly subordinate passages in the backgrounds of their paintings, a compositional
structure known as the paradoxical encomium, or ironic eulogy.[2] The origin of thisrhetorical trope lies in literature, and was extensively used by Desiderius Erasmus in
his Lof der zotheid (“In Praise of Folly”), published in 1511. Jan Steen often drewFig 2. Cornelis Bega, Young Woman
Playing a Lute, 1662, canvas, 35 x
32.1 cm, Gemäldegalerie Staatliche
Museen, Berlin, inv. 871, © Foto:
Gemäldegalerie der Staatlichen
Museen zu Berlin – Preußischer
Kulturbesitz Fotograf/in: Jörg P.
Andersinspiration from Erasmus and the works of Aertsen and Beuckelaer, but he seldom
applied the principles of the paradoxical encomium as thoroughly as he did in thispainting.[3]In the background of Steen’s painting the rich man sits at a table in the company of ayoung woman and a young man, while a waiter pours him a glass of wine. Lazarus lies
before the table with his right hand raised and his left hand holding a begging bowl
while a greyhound licks his sores. A maidservant, pointedly crossing her arms, feeds awhite poodle standing on its hind legs to beg for this gift.[4] The pains taken by the girlto train a dog are in stark contrast to her unpitying attitude toward Lazarus. This motif
relates to the story’s moral lesson about caring for those less fortunate than oneself,
for after Lazarus died he went to heaven, whereas the rich man ended up in hell.
When the rich man saw Lazarus sitting in Abraham’s lap, he asked if Lazarus could
bring him a sip of water, but this request was refused. His entreaty to send Lazarus towarn members of his family about the consequences of their behavior was also
refused.
In the seventeenth century, the story of Lazarus and the rich man was connected with
the necessity of doing good works, as is seen in two group portraits painted in 1624
by Werner van den Valckert (1585–1627), Regents and Regentesses of the Leper Housein Amsterdam. In his depiction of the male regents Van der Valckert portrayed
Lazarus sitting in Abraham’s lap.[5] This painting also includes a depiction of one of
the acts of mercy: clothing the poor. The doctrine of doing good works held that it
was possible to improve one’s chances of entering heaven by performing gooddeeds. This theme was generally treated with extreme caution in the seventeenthcentury Dutch Republic since, according to the doctrine of predestination to which
the Calvinists adhered, it was impossible to bring about any change whatsoever in© 2024 The Leiden Collection

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God’s preordained plan. This issue was clearly known to the regents of the Leper
House, hence it is surprising that Van den Valckert referred so overtly to the Lazarus
story in this work. Nevertheless Lazarus and lepers were at that time almost
synonymous. For Catholics like Jan Steen, however, the doctrine of good works
remained important, and it is probable that Steen painted Lazarus and the Rich Man
for a Catholic patron.
Lazarus and the Rich Man has a number of connections to other works by Steen. For
example, in a painting of a dissolute household, dated 1663, Steen inscribed theproverb “In weelde siet toe” on a piece of slate at the lower right (fig 1). Instead ofillustrating this proverb with a biblical subject, as he did in the Leiden Collection
painting, Steen here introduced a number of pictorial motifs that allude to otherproverbs warning about insatiable desires stemming from excessive luxury, among
them worldliness, avarice, gluttony, and lasciviousness.[6] In 1667 Steen portrayed thestory of Lazarus and the rich man in a lavish but not overcrowded scene.[7] The motifof the rich man in the background of the painting appears in reverse in The Banquet
of Anthony and Cleopatra of 1667 in Göttingen.[8] The motif of the poodle standing
on its hind legs appears a number of times in Steen’s paintings, in, among others, awork in Nivaa and a painting in Cape Town.[9] The one quite distinctive figure in thispainting is the lady playing the cittern, which does not otherwise appear in Steen’s
works. As Mary Ann Scott has rightly observed, Steen derived this figure from
Cornelis Bega’s (1631–64) Young Woman Playing the Lute of 1662 in Berlin (fig 2).
[10]

Steen must have remembered that painting when he moved from Haarlem to

Leiden.
The Leiden Collection painting is stylistically similar to other works from the lastyears of Steen’s career, including Merry Company on a Terrace (The Metropolitan
Museum of Art in New York), Family of Jan Steen (The Museum of Fine Arts in
Budapest), and Garden Party of the Paets Family, dated 1677, and must date from thesame period.[11]- Wouter Kloek, 2017

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Endnotes
1. In Steen’s Adoration of the Golden Calf in Raleigh (see H. Perry Chapman, Wouter Th. Kloek, andArthur K. Wheelock Jr., Jan Steen, Painter and Storyteller, ed. Guido Jansen [Exh. cat. Washington D.C.,
National Gallery of Art; Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum] [New Haven, 1996], no. 47), the drum, triangle,
and tambourine sound simultaneously, whereas the panpipe lies abandoned.
2. On the paradoxical encomium, see Rosalie L. Colie, Pradoxia epidemica: The Renaissance Tradition of
Paradox (Princeton, 1966); and Reindert Falkenburg, “‘Alter Einoutus’: Over de aard en herkomst van
Pieter Aertsens stilleven-conceptie,” Nederlands Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek 40 (1989): 41–66, esp. 56–59.
3. Having attended the Latin School, Jan Steen knew the work of Erasmus, whose textbooks continued to
be used in schools until well into the eighteenth century. Ironically, Steen’s Village School, now in
Edinburgh, shows the portrait of Erasmus lying on the ground in a corner of the painting; see H. Perry
Chapman, Wouter Th. Kloek, and Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., Jan Steen, Painter and Storyteller, ed. Guido
Jansen (Exh. cat. Washington D.C., National Gallery of Art; Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum) (New Haven,1996), 232, no. 41. Presumably Steen also knew the Adagia, Erasmus’s collection of proverbs. Even
more so than Adriaen van de Venne, his immediate precursor as a painter of proverbs, Steen must havebeen influenced by Pieter Bruegel the Elder (1525–69), whose work was certainly connected with
Erasmus’s Adagia; see Walter Gibson, Figures of Speech: Picturing Proverbs in Renaissance Netherlands(Berkeley, 2010), esp. 8–11.
4. In general the motif of the trained dog was used in the seventeenth century to indicate inquisitiveness, oran eagerness to learn (“leer-sucht”). On this subject, see Jan Baptist Bedaux, The Reality of Symbols:
Studies in the Iconology of Netherlandish Art 1400–1800 (The Hague, 1990), 109–69.
5. On these two works by Van den Valckert, see Korthals Altes in Jonathan Bikker et al., Dutch Paintingsof the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, 2 vols. (Amsterdam, 2007), 1: 370–71, nos.
282 and 283.
6. For the Vienna painting, see: H. Perry Chapman, Wouter Th. Kloek, and Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., Jan
Steen, Painter and Storyteller, ed. Guido Jansen (Exh. cat. Washington D.C., National Gallery of Art;
Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum) (New Haven, 1996), no. 21.
7. In that painting the anecdotal prevails (a boy urinating in the jug intended for Lazarus, for instance, anda girl coaxing a dog to stand on its hind legs, the latter motif not really appropriate to this context), yet
its refined and detailed execution makes it a true masterpiece.
8. Karel Braun, Alle schilderijen van Jan Steen (Rotterdam, 1980), no. 283.
9. Karel Braun, Alle schilderijen van Jan Steen (Rotterdam, 1980), nos. 161 and 260 (fig. in reverse). For
the latter painting, see Hans Fransen, The Michaelis Collection: The Old Town House, Cape Town;
Catalogue of the Collection of Paintings and Drawings (Zwolle, 1996), 143–44, no. 63, color ill. XLII.
10. Mary Ann Scott, “Cornelis Bega (1631/2–1664) as Painter and Draughtsman” (PhD diss. University of© 2024 The Leiden Collection

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Maryland, 1984), 87–88. With regard to Steen’s familiarity with Bega’s figure studies, see also 94–95.
Bega often made counterproofs of his drawings. As stated by Scott (pp. 144 and 163, n. 42), based inpart on information from Lyckle de Vries (unpublished correspondence), the frequent occurrence of
figures in reverse in the work of Jan Steen might be connected with the frequent use of counterproofs
by the Haarlem draughtsmen of that time.
11. Karel Braun, Alle schilderijen van Jan Steen (Rotterdam, 1980), no. 1980, no. 373; H. Perry Chapman,
Wouter Th. Kloek, and Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., Jan Steen, Painter and Storyteller, ed. Guido Jansen(Exh. cat. Washington D.C., National Gallery of Art; Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum) (New Haven, 1996),
no. 49Provenance
C. Hoogendijk, Amsterdam, by 1899 (his sale, Muller’s, Amsterdam, 14 May 1912, no. 76).[1][Goudstikker, The Hague, 1920, no. 108].
Onnes Collection, Nijenrode (his sale, Fredrik Muller, Amsterdam, 10 July 1923, no. 40 [6,500
guilders]).
Preyer Collection, The Hague, before 1934.
G. J. Willink Collection, Winterswijk, before 1934; [D. Katz, Dieren, 1934–37].
A. Bronkhorst Collection, The Hague, 1937.
[Schaeffer Galleries, New York, by 15 Sept 1937 ($9,000.); D. Katz, Dieren, by 21 May 1938;
Miedl/Goudstikker, Amsterdam, by 14 August 1940].
Adolf Hitler, by 17 October 1940, Linz, no. 1107; Collecting Point Munich, 7 July 1945, no. 4414.
[Restituted to Katz, 11 December 1947].
H. Wetzlar Collection, Amsterdam.
[Bourghouts, Utrecht].
(Sale, Paris, Galerie Charpentier, 6 June 1958, no. 40 [Julius Weitzner, London and New York, by
1959]).
Bob Jones University Art Museum, Greenville, S.C., 1959 [acquired from Weitzner for $15,000].
John Koch (1902–78), New York, by 1963.[2]Saul P. Steinberg Collection, New York, until 2000 [Richard L. Feigen & Co., New York, 2000].
Private collection, Barrington, Ill., until 2006 [Johnny van Haeften, London, 2006].
From whom acquired by the present owner.

Provenance Notes© 2024 The Leiden Collection

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1. Cornelis Hoogendijk was a remarkable collector both of Old Masters and of works by contemporary
artists, such as Paul Cézanne, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and Vincent van Gogh. His collection, including
the modern works, was on loan to the Rijksmuseum until his death in 1911. After the museum waspresented with quite a few Old Masters from his estate, all the rest was put on sale. See Herbert Henkels,“Cézanne en Van Gogh in het Rijksmseum voor moderne Kunst in Amsterdam: De collectie vanCornelis Hoogendijk (1866–1911),” Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 41 (1993): 155–295. The loan of
Lazarus and the Rich Man to the Rijksmuseum is mentioned on 217, its sale in 1921 on 246.
2. The following photographs in the National Gallery of Art Library Image Collections show John Koch
(1909–1978) with the artwork in his home in 1969: Photographs, M/C, Lida Moser Archive — DLI
1103600072; Photographs, M/C, Lida Moser Archive — DLI 1103600074. © Lida Moser Archive,
Department of Image Collections, National Gallery of Art Library, Washington, DC. The Leiden
Collection thanks Molli Kuenstner, Image Specialist for Northern and Central European Art,
Department of Library Image Collections, for these images.
The painting was first recorded in Koch’s collection in 1963, when it was included in the exhibition of
his collection at the Cosmopolitan Club, New York.

Exhibition History
Amsterdam, Rijksmusem, 1907–12 [lent by Hoogendijk].
The Hague, Collection Goudstikker, Pulchri Studio, November, 1920, no.108.
The Hague, Kunstzaal Kleykamp, “Tentoonstelling van schilderijen door oud-Hollandsche en Vlaamsche
meesters uit de collectie Katz te Dieren,” 1934, 21, no. 60 [lent by D. Katz].
Nijmegen, “’Huize Belvoir,’ Tentoonstelling van 16e en 17e eeuwsche hollandsche, vlaamsche en
italiaansche schilderijen,” 15 July–1 September 1936, no. 61 [lent by D. Katz].
Dieren, D. Katz, “Tentoonstelling van belangrijke 16e en 17e eeuwsche Hollandsche Schilderijen,” 3
July 1937–15 September 1937, 26, no. 94.
Los Angeles, Los Angeles Museum of Art, “An Exhibition of Old Masters,” 5 April 1938–1 May 1938
[lent by Dr. Hans Schaeffer].
Stadhuis, Deventer, “Tenteoonstelling van oude meesters der 16e en 17e eeuw in het stadhuis te
Deventer,” November 1948, no. 36.
New York, Cosmpolitan Club, “The Collection of Mr. and Mrs. John and Dora Koch,” 18 January,
1963.
South Hadley, Mass., Mount Holyoke College Art Museum, “Wine and Spirit: Rituals, Remedies, andRevelry,” 2 September–12 December 2010; Rochester, University of Rochester, Memorial Art Gallery,
29 January–10 April 2011 [lent by the present owner].
Ithaca, Cornell University, Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, “An Eye For Detail: Dutch Painting
From the Leiden Collection,” September 2014–January 2015 [lent by the present owner].
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Beijing, National Museum of China, “Rembrandt and His Time: Masterpieces from The Leiden
Collection,” 17 June–3 September 2017 [lent by the present owner].
Shanghai, Long Museum, West Bund, “Rembrandt, Vermeer and Hals in the Dutch Golden Age:
Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection,” 23 September 2017–25 February 2018 [lent by the present
owner].
Moscow, The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, “The Age of Rembrandt and Vermeer: Masterpiecesof The Leiden Collection,” 28 March 2018–22 July 2018 [lent by the present owner].
St. Petersburg, The State Hermitage Museum, “The Age of Rembrandt and Vermeer: Masterpieces of
The Leiden Collection,” 5 September 2018–13 January 2019 [lent by the present owner].
Amsterdam, Hermitage Amsterdam, “Rembrandt and his Contemporaries: History Paintings from The
Leiden Collection,” 4 February–27 August 2023, no. 35 [lent by the present owner].

References
Hofstede de Groot, Cornelis. A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch Painters of
the Seventeenth Century Based on the Work of John Smith. Edited and translated by Edward G. Hawke, 1:23, no. 58. 8 vols. London, 1907–28. Originally published as Beschreibendes und kritisches Verzeichnis
der Werke der hervorragendsten höllandischen Maler des XVII. Jahrhunderts. 10 vols. Esslingen andParis, 1907–28.
Stedelijk Museum. Catalogus van schilderijen, teekeningen en beelden in het Stedelijk Museum.
Amsterdam, 1911, 351, no. 2250c.
Goudstikker, Jacques. Catalogue de la Collection Goudstikker d’Amsterdam. Exh. cat. The Hague, PulchriStudio. Amsterdam, 1920, n.p., no. 108.
Trautscholdt, E. “Steen.” In Thieme, Ulrich and Felix Becker, eds. Allgemeines Lexicon der Bildenden
Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart. 37 vols. Leipzig, 1907–50, 31:511.
Konkinklijke Kunstzaal Kleykamp. Tentoonstelling van schilderijen door oud-Hollandsche en Vlaamsche
meesters uit de collectie Katz te Dieren. Exh. cat. The Hague, Koninklijke Kunstzaal Kunstzaal Kleykamp.
The Hague, 1934, 21, no. 60.
D. Katz Gallery. Tentoonstelling van 16e en 17e eeuwsche Hollandsche, Vlaamsche en Italiaansche
Schilderijen. Exh. cat. Dieren, D. Katz Gallery. Dieren, 1936, 20, no. 61.
D. Katz Gallery Katz. Tentoonstelling van belangrijke 16e en 17e eeuwsche Hollandsche Schilderijen. Exh.
cat. Dieren, D. Katz Gallery. Dieren, 1937, 26, no. 94.
Erasmus, Kurt. Catalogus van de tentoonstelling van oude meesters der 16e en 17e eeuw in het stadhuis te
Deventer. Deventer, 1948, no. 36.
De Groot, Cornelis Wilhelmus. Jan Steen: Beeld en Woord. Utrecht and Nijmegen, 1952, 23, 25, 35–36,
63–64.
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Koch, John. Catalogue of the Collection of Mr. and Mrs. John Koch. Exh. cat. New York, The
Cosmopolitan Club. New York, 1963, 2.
De Vries, Lyckle. “Jan Steen ‘de kluchtschilder.’” PhD diss. Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, 1977, 70, 88,
168.
Kirshchenbaum, Baruch D. The Religious and Historical Paintings of Jan Steen. New York, 1977, 135,
no. 58, fig. 103.
Braun, Karel. Alle tot nu toe bekende schilderijen van Jan Steen. Rotterdam, 1980, 142, no. 367.
Westermann, Mariet. The Amusements of Jan Steen: Comic Painting in the Seventeenth Century.
Zwolle, 1997, 286, no. 13.
Yeager-Crasselt, Lara. “Lazarus and the Rich Man, or “In Luxury Beware.” In Rembrandt and His Time:
Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection. Edited by Lara Yeager-Crasselt, 164; 190, no. 72. Translatedby Li Ying. Exh. cat. Beijing, National Museum of China. Beijing, 2017.
Long Museum, West Bund. Rembrandt, Vermeer and Hals in the Dutch Golden Age: Masterpieces fromThe Leiden Collection. Exh. cat. Shanghai, Long Museum, West Bund. Shanghai, 2017, 176–77.
Kloek, Wouter. “Jan Steen, His Repertoire of Motifs and History Painting.” In Jan Steen’s Histories.
Edited by Ariane van Suchtelen, 48–49, no. 32. Exh. cat. The Hague, Mauritshuis. Zwolle and The
Hague, 2018.
Yeager-Crasselt, Lara. “Lazarus and the Rich Man or ‘In Luxury Beware.’” In The Age of Rembrandt
and Vermeer: Masterpieces of The Leiden Collection. Edited by Polina Lyubimova, 198–99; 246, no. 66.
Translated by Daria Babich and Daria Kuzina. Exh. cat. Moscow, The Pushkin State Museum of Fine
Arts; St. Petersburg, The State Hermitage Museum. Moscow, 2018.
Van Suchtelen, Ariane. “Jan Steen’s Histories.” In The Leiden Collection Catalogue, 3rd ed. Edited by
ArthurK.

Wheelock

Jr.

and

Lara

Yeager-Crasselt.

New

York,

2021,

fig.

4.

https://theleidencollection.com/essays/jan-steens-histories/
Wheelock, Arthur K., Jr., Christiaan Vogelaar, and Caroline van Cauwenberge. Rembrandt and His
Contemporaries: History Paintings from The Leiden Collection. Exh. cat. Amsterdam, Hermitage
Amsterdam. Zwolle, 2023, 150–52, no. 35. [Exhibition catalogue also published in Dutch.]

Technical Summary
The support, a single piece of fine, plain-weave fabric with tacking margins removed, has been lined. Twolayers of paper tape extend into the face of the painting along all four sides. Broad cusping along the upperand lower edges and slight cusping along the vertical edges indicates that the support dimensions have notbeen significantly altered. Old tack holes visible in the X-radiograph along the right vertical edge indicate thepainting was previously secured along the face of the painting. There are three import stamps and six paperlabels, but no wax seals or stencils along the lining or stretcher.
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A light-colored ground has been thinly and evenly applied. The oil paint has been applied in thin, opaquelayers of rich paste blended wet-into-wet with lively brushwork and no use of impasto. Areas such as the blue
sky in the upper left corner have been painted more thinly, allowing the light-colored underlayer to show
through.
No underdrawing is readily apparent in infrared images captured at 780–1000 nanometers. Compositionalchanges visible in the images include the chin of the white dog standing on its hind legs along the right sideof the composition, which appears to originally have been raised more vertically. The position of the fingersof the small boy in the lower left corner appear to have been shifted, as has the profile of the second figure
from the left, gazing at the rich man.
The painting is inscribed and signed in dark paint on the stonework along the lower center, but is undated.
The painting has not undergone conservation treatment since its acquisition in 2006 and remains in a goodstate of preservation.

© 2024 The Leiden Collection