Peasants Merrymaking Outside an Inn(Previously “Fair at Warmond”)

ca. 1676
oil on canvas
102.5 x 181.6 cm
signed in dark paint, lower center: “JSteen”(“JS” in ligature)
JS-108Jan Steen(Leiden 1626 – 1679 Leiden)

How to cite
Kloek, Wouter. “Peasants Merrymaking Outside an Inn (Previously “Fair at Warmond”)” (2017). In The Leiden
Collection

Catalogue,

2nd

ed.

EditedbyArthurK.

Wheelock

Jr.

New

York,

2017–20.

https://theleidencollection.com/artwork/peasants-merrymaking-outside-an-inn/ (archived May 2020).
A PDF of every version of this entry is available in this Online Catalogue's Archive, and the Archive ismanaged by a permanent URL. New versions are added only when a substantive change to the narrative
occurs.

© 2020 The Leiden Collection

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This large painting from the last years of Jan Steen’s remarkable career isComparative Figures

one of the master’s most expansive depictions of a country fair. The
merrymaking takes place beneath tall trees in front of an inn, to the right ofwhich, at some remove, are market stalls and a castle gate. The flag hanging
from the tower window of a distant church was a signal that a fair was being
celebrated that very day. In the midst of the festivities are two intertwined
couples dancing to the tunes of a young violinist and a hurdy-gurdy player
who has climbed on top of a table. Other figures sit and relax smoking or
drinking, while some revelers greet each other with smiles and the doffing of

Fig 1. Jan Steen, PeasantsDancing before an Inn, ca. 1647,
panel, 38.5 x 56.5 cm, Mauritshuis,
The Hague, inv. 553

hats. Near the inn a man and a woman toast each other with unrestrained
exuberance. Leaning out of a window from the building’s second floor is a
man helping his vomiting female companion, an indication that the gaiety willcontinue, perhaps to dubious ends.
A crown of flowers, attached to a rope strung between two trees, hangs
above the dancers. Such crowns were hung up for festive occasions,
including weddings and the celebration of the birthday of the Prince ofOrange.[1] The flag attached to the inn is a frequent feature in depictions ofsixteenth-century fairs honoring saints’ days by such artists as Pieter
Bruegel the Elder (ca. 1525–69) and David Vinckboons (1576–ca. 1632).

Fig 2. Circle of Jan Beerstraaten,
The Church of Warmond, ca.
1660, black chalk, gray wash, 175
x 225 mm, Rijksmuseum,
Amsterdam, RP-T-1879-A-22

Such Catholic festivities, however, were not officially celebrated in protestantHolland and, as Steen provides no explicit clues as to the nature of thecelebration, it is probable that he depicted a generic event and not a specificfeast day.[2]Steen has portrayed a wide array of humanity in this country setting
characters familiar from his earlier works. A particularly engaging figure is thewoman with a low-cut dress who holds her sleeping young child close to herbosom with one hand while grasping a white earthenware bowl with theother. The bowl will soon be filled with shrimp being sold by the fishmonger
once he is paid by the woman’s husband.[3] It has been suggested that the[4]

couple is Steen and his wife, although this identification is highly doubtful.

The boy looking at her, probably their son, is eating cherries from his hat,clearly preferring fruit to shrimp.
Many of Steen’s figural groups create scenarios that relate to popularFig 3. Detail before restoration,
Jan Steen, Peasants Merrymaking
Outside an Inn, JS-108 (photo
courtesy of RKD (Rijksbureau voor
Kunsthistorische
Documentatie/Netherlands
Institute for Art History))sayings and proverbs. In the center of the painting one sees an unfolding
courtship scene, where an older man takes the hand of a country lass,perhaps to invite her join in the dance. The man’s attire is so outlandishly oldfashioned that even in Steen’s day it must have been considered ridiculous.
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Just behind this man, Steen has depicted two dogs sniffing each other,suggesting the underlying baseness for his attentions to the young woman.[5]This motif harkens back to one of Steen’s first works with merrymaking
peasants, Peasants Dancing before an Inn (fig 1).[6] Near this group is afisherman, recognizable as such by his blue woolen cap, who sits at a low
table holding a clay pipe in his hand. He smiles approvingly at a boy drinking
from a large jug. Lying on the barrel near them are smokers’ requisites and,presumably, dice. This little vignette is a visual reference to the saying “Asthe old sing, so twitter the young,” a theme that Steen often depicted in his
paintings.[7]In the right foreground an old man leaning on his cane stares lasciviously at
a woman relieving herself. She squats near a bridge crossing a small body of

Fig 4. Rembrandt van Rijn,
Woman Urinating, 1631, etching,
81 x 64 mm, Rijksmuseum,
Amsterdam, RP-P-OB-637

water, beyond which lies a boy eating turnips. The fact that the boy looks atthe viewer suggests that Steen intended him to introduce a note of irony tothe scene, perhaps based on the well-known saying “to pull the wool oversomeone’s eyes,” the Dutch equivalent of which, iemand knollen voor
citroenen verkopen, literally means “to sell someone turnips for lemons.” [8]In the middle distance, a horseman—to judge from his attire, an officer in theStates army—gestures expansively toward the merrymakers as he addresses
an elegantly dressed young woman. Between the horseman and the woman,a yelping poodle, most likely the woman’s pet, begs for attention. The
woman is accompanied by her children, a sumptuously dressed girl who
clings to her mother’s skirt and the girl’s older brother. The boy’s costume
provides some indication of the painting’s late date, for the cravat around hisneck, a lace cloth tied with a bow, was a fashionable item of apparel first
introduced around 1670. The handkerchief hanging nonchalantly from hiscoat pocket was also a costly article of clothing.[9] This youth, who isaccompanied by a greyhound, haggles with a peasant boy holding up abasket, undoubtedly containing a songbird. This elegant family may wellhave arrived at the country fair in the carriage stopped by the castle gate.
The gentleman sitting in the carriage is presumably the woman’s husband.
In numerous Dutch paintings and prints, town-dwellers are shown observing
merrymaking peasants. “Aensiet dit boersche volk” (Look at these peasantfolk) are the first words of the caption to an engraving by Willem van
Swanenburgh after David Vinckboons. This motif also appears elsewhere in
Steen’s work, as in Village Fair of the early 1650s and Winter Landscape in
Skokloster.[10] Here, it seems likely that Steen simply wanted to present anarray of people from different walks of life rather than highlighting the© 2020 The Leiden Collection

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differences between townspeople and country folk.
In the eighteenth century the Leiden Collection painting was identified as Fair
at Warmond, as is evident from a drawn copy by Leiden draughtsman Pieter
Leonard Delfos made in 1789.[11] Warmond is a village near Leiden where
Steen lived in the late 1650s, but none of the buildings in this painting
resemble those from that village. The church in Warmond, for example, hada quite different appearance. In 1573 a fire had destroyed the structure, andseventeenth-century worshippers gathered in the restored choir, which wasconnected to the still-existing tower by a completely dilapidated nave. The
situation is recorded in a drawing of around 1660 by an artist in the circle of
Jan Beerstraaten (fig 2).[12] Another argument against Warmond is thatneither of the two castles in the area—Lokhorst, also known as Oud-Teilingen,or Warmond Castle—had this kind of gate.
A more likely source of inspiration for Steen than Warmond was Wassenaar,
which had a church tower similar in shape to that in the painting. The nave of
the Wassenaar church was flanked by a south aisle, which probably could
not be distinguished from the nave when seen from a distance. Moreover,
Ter Weer Castle, located near Wassenaar, had a gate that resembles that in
Steen’s painting.[13] The similarities in its appearance were initially evengreater, but Steen raised the height of the gate’s roof during the painting’s
execution, as can be seen in changes in paint color in this area. Such
topographical freedom is found in other late paintings by Jan Steen, as
in Garden Party of the Paets Family of 1677, where Steen has depicted thefamily’s home on the Rapenburg canal in Leiden as though it were in a
spacious park landscape.[14]Jan Steen painted over 30 scenes of merrymaking peasants at an inn, notincluding peasant weddings, skittle players, and brawling rustics. He wasparticularly interested in this subject in his younger years. Although thispainting is not refined in every respect, it is among the most important worksof Steen’s last period and testifies to his great talent for composition. The
artist has here distributed the various figures and vignettes over the canvas
with great efficiency. The crowd seems immense, but the individual figures
are clearly distinguishable. Similarly, Steen needed only a few tree trunks
and some foliage to create the impression of a leafy place by an inn.[15] In his
later years he was sometimes unable to resist the temptation of painting a
crowded scene of merrymaking peasants, as in A Village Revel (Herberg ’t
Mis Verstant) of 1673, in the British Royal Collection, but here he showed
great restraint.[16]© 2020 The Leiden Collection

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A not too surprising change was made to the painting in the past, probably atthe end of the eighteenth century or early in the nineteenth century. The
defecating woman was repainted so that her right hand was no longer wiping
her bottom but placing a milk pail in the ditch (fig 3).[17] The overpainting wasremoved only in 1970. For this motif Steen drew inspiration from
Rembrandt’s etching Woman Urinating (fig 4).[18] He had used this motifearlier in his career (though evidently in a concealed way), in his Peasant
Fair in the Frans Hals Museum in Haarlem.[19] Here, however, quite to thecontrary, he quoted Rembrandt’s model with alacrity.
The elegant young woman and two children at the right may be members of
the patron’s family. It should be noted, however, that the extravagant
clothing of the two children seems more exaggerated than realistic (the girl’s
ermine collar is particularly over the top), so one must be careful about
coming to that conclusion.[20] The first known owner of the painting is Willem
van Heemskerck (1613–92), but whether he actually commissioned it isdifficult to say. The four works by Steen from his collection differ greatly fromeach other and do not suggest that he had a systematic approach to his
acquisitions of paintings. It is remarkable, however, that two important lateworks by Jan Steen (Peasants Merrymaking and JS-112) belonging to Van
Heemskerck are once again united in the same collection.[21]- Wouter Kloek, 2017

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Endnotes

1. On weddings, see, for example, Steen’s painting of 1667 in the Wellington Museum, London(Karel Braun, Alle schilderijen van Jan Steen [Rotterdam, 1980], no. 284), or his Wedding of1672 in the Rijksmuseum (Karel Braun, Alle schilderijen van Jan Steen [Rotterdam, 1980],
no. 349); regarding the celebration of Prinsjesdag (Princes’ Day), see the painting in the
Rijksmuseum (Karel Braun, Alle schilderijen van Jan Steen [Rotterdam, 1980], no. 276). The
Rhethoricians’ Festival in Brussels (Karel Braun, Alle schilderijen van Jan Steen [Rotterdam,
1980], no. 227) also features a crown of flowers.
2. Flags of this kind in compositions by Pieter Bruegel the Elder and David Vinckboons generallyindicate that the celebration honors the name day of a specific saint, usually Saint George orSaint Martin (as, for example, in the engraving after Pieter Bruegel, Fair of Saint George [B.
207]). The Feast of Saint George is on 23 April, the Feast of Saint Martin on 11 November.
Steen’s painting, however, cannot depict either of these occasions: the Feast of Saint Martin
was held in the fall and not the summer, and archers were always present at the Feast ofSaint George. Regarding the objections to such fairs in the protestant Dutch Republic, see G.
D. J. Schotel, Het Oud-Hollandsch huisgezin der zeventiende eeuw, ed. H. C. Rogge(Arnhem, 1903), 348 (the faithful were warned every year “dat men zich had te onthouden
van alle paepse formaliteiten en feesten, soo als Sinte Martijn, dryconighen, onnosele
kynderkens, vastelavent ende andersins” [that one should refrain from all Catholic formalities
and feasts, such as the Feasts of Saint Martin, the Three Kings, the Innocent Children,
Shrove Tuesday, and others]).
3. Shrimp sellers occur in all shapes and sizes in Steen’s paintings. A well-known example isthe shrimp seller in The Garden Outside an Inn in Berlin; see Karel Braun, Alle schilderijen
van Jan Steen (Rotterdam, 1980), no. 152; and 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 andLondon, 1996), no. 17. Steen sometimes portrayed the shrimp seller as an independent
subject; see Karel Braun, Alle schilderijen van Jan Steen (Rotterdam, 1980), no. B-66.
4. Tobias van Westrheene, Jan Steen: Étude sur L’Art en Hollande (The Hague, 1856), 120, no.
94; for the evocative story inspired by this painting, see also Anna Tummers, ed., Celebratingin the Golden Age (Exh. cat. Haarlem, Frans Hals Museum) (Rotterdam, 2011), 68.
5. A pair of sniffing dogs is frequently seen in Steen’s “village weddings.” See Karel Braun, Alleschilderijen van Jan Steen (Rotterdam, 1980), nos. 40–41. This man is dressed as the old
suitor in Steen’s The Cock Fight. 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 and London, 1996),© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Peasants Merrymaking Outside an Inn (Previously “Fair at
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6. Karel Braun, Alle schilderijen van Jan Steen (Rotterdam, 1980), no. 5; see also Ariane van
Suchtelen, Jan Steen in the Mauritshuis (The Hague and Zwolle, 2011), 24–25. The motif ofthe man lying at the left—Steen painted such figures on numerous occasions—can also be
traced to this early painting, in which a similar figure, but sleeping and in reverse, waspresumably first introduced by the artist.
7. See especially the painting of 1668 in the Rijksmuseum; Karel Braun, Alle schilderijen van
Jan Steen (Rotterdam, 1980), no. 295. See also Karel Braun, Alle schilderijen van Jan
Steen (Rotterdam, 1980), nos. 188, 200–2; and 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.
23.
8. This boy serves the same purpose as the sleeping boy who has just eaten a turnip in thecenter foreground of Steen’s Village School in Edinburgh; 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. 41. Another possibility is the proverb “Elck is om raepen uyt” (Everyone is out tosteal). See Walter Gibson, Figures of Speech: Picturing Proverbs in Renaissance
Netherlands (Berkeley, 2010), 75–77, who discusses a painting with that inscription by
Adriaen van de Venne. The double meaning of rapen (meaning both “turnips” and “to steal”)
is essential to that proverb, and therefore does not seem readily applicable to the present
painting, unless the saying depicted is actually “elkeen probeert zijn aandeel te bemachtigen”(everyone tries to lay his hands on his fair share), in which case it may well be of significanceto this work.
9. See Eddy de Jongh, Portretten van echt en trouw: Huwelijk en gezin in de Nederlandse kunst
van de zeventiende eeuw (Zwolle, 1986), 112. See also S. Rietveld, “Schilderij met
zakdoek,” Halszaken 10 (2011): 6–7, no. 30, which discusses Interior with a Wedding Feastby Anthonie Palamedesz. (1601–73) of 1640, in which the mother of the bride, Liesbeth vande Waert, holds a handkerchief that still exists.
10. See Karel Braun, Alle schilderijen van Jan Steen (Rotterdam, 1980), nos. 75 and 11; 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 and London, 1996), 102, fig. 2, and cat. no 1; and Mariet
Westermann, The Amusements of Jan Steen: Comic Painting in the Seventeenth Century(Zwolle, 1997), 144, fig. 10.
11. Pieter Leonard Delfos after Jan Steen, The Fair at Warmond, black chalk on paper, 45.3 x
63.5 cm, Atlas van Stolk, Rotterdam. Inscribed on the verso: “De Warmondze Kermis.”
12. The dilapidated state of the nave is also easily discernible in prints by Rademaker and© 2020 The Leiden Collection

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Spilman. Steen did occasionally produce topographically correct depictions, as in his Fair at
Oegstgeest, a painting from the mid-1650s that is now in the Detroit Institute of Arts. The
church in the background of that painting is the so-called Green Church at Oegstgeest. The
detailed rendering of the tower of that church, which was flanked on the south side by a small
chapel, rules out the possibility that the Leiden Collection painting depicts Oegstgeest, as
written on a photograph of the painting in the RKD (Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische
Documentatie/Netherlands Institute for Art History) in The Hague. The photo had been in thepossession of Dr. Hans Schneider, then director of the RKD (Rijksbureau voor
Kunsthistorische Documentatie/Netherlands Institute for Art History), who had presumably
been inspired by Wilhelm R. Valentiner’s article, “The Fair at Oegstgeest by Jan
Steen,” Bulletin of the Detroit Institute of Arts 19 (1940): 66–69.
13. On Ter Weer, see S. J. Fockema Andreae et al., Kastelen, ridderhofsteden en buitenplaatsen
in Rijnland (Leiden, 1952), 93–94. The appearance of the gate is known from a drawing by
Roelant Roghman (Roelant Roghman, Ter Weer House, Seen from the Entrance Gate, ca.
1647, black chalk, gray wash, 290 x 459 mm, present whereabouts unknown): see H. W. M.
van der Wyck and J. W. Niemeijer, De kasteeltekeningen van Roelant Roghman (Alphen aan
den Rijn, 1989), 1: 224, no. 205
14. Karel Braun, Alle tot nu toe bekende 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, National Gallery of Art;
Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum) (New Haven, 1996) no. 49. In fact, the profile of the woman with achild on her lap in the left foreground in the painting discussed here is almost identical to thewoman in the right foreground of Garden Party.
15. This restraint is particularly evident when one considers his earlier fairs, such as Fair at theRiver, ca. 1653 (Karel Braun, Alle tot nu toe bekende schilderijen van Jan Steen [Rotterdam,
1980], no. 75) and Fair at Oegstgeest from the mid-1650s (Karel Braun, Alle tot nu toe
bekende schilderijen van Jan Steen [Rotterdam, 1980], no. 74); see also 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) (NewHaven, 1996), 176.
16. Karel Braun, Alle schilderijen van Jan Steen (Rotterdam, 1980), no. 354; see also 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. 46. The execution of this painting was largely the workof one of Steen’s assistants. Another painting with many figures is Steen’s Fair with
“Neuzenslijper” (Karel Braun, Alle schilderijen van Jan Steen [Rotterdam, 1980], no. 366).
17. Cornelis Hofstede de Groot writes: “On the bank of a stream a milkmaid empties her copper
jug,” A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch Painters of the© 2020 The Leiden Collection

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Seventeenth Century Based on the Work of John Smith, ed. and trans. Edward G. Hawke, 1:
170–71, no. 652, 8 vols. (London, 1907–27), originally published as Beschreibendes und
kritisches Verzeichnis der Werke der hervorragendsten holländischen Maler des XVII.
Jahrhunderts, 10 vols. (Esslingen and Paris, 1907–28) (“Am Ufer eines Baches leert ein
Milchmädchen ihren kupferen Krug”). There is no overpainting on Delfos’s drawing of 1789.
In the 1842 catalogue of the Higginson collection, the woman is described as holding a milkjug.
18. In the drawing made after the painting, Delfos depicted a stream of urine that is not, or atleast is no longer, seen in the painting. Delfos, too, may have been thinking of Rembrandt
here.
19. Karel Braun, Alle schilderijen van Jan Steen (Rotterdam, 1980), no. 165.
20. An analogous case is the painting by Esaias van de Velde (1587–1630), The Visit of Prince
Maurits to the New Stables at Rijswijk of 1624 (Six Collection, Amsterdam), a painting that
contains a large number of recognizable people and a great deal of existing architecture,
though it sometimes falls back on standard formulas from the pictorial tradition of rendering
fairs. See K. Zandvliet, Maurits, Prins van Oranje (Amsterdam, 2000), 311–14. See also M.
Dominicus-van Soest, “De kermis in de beeldende kunst,” in Kennis, kunstjes en kunnen:
Kermis; De wondere wereld van glans en glitter, ed. Johanna Jacobs (Amsterdam, 2002), 41.
21. For a more detailed discussion of Van Heemskerck as the possible patron, see JS-112.

Provenance
Willem Jacobsz van Heemskerk (1613–92), Leiden, until 1692; by descent to Willem Willemsz
van Heemskerck (1648–95), Leiden, until 1695; by descent to Johanna van Sorgen(1646–1729), Leiden, until 1729; by descent to Leonard van Heemskerk (1689–1771), Leiden,
until 1771 (his sale, Leiden, Delfos, 2 September 1771, no. 9 [for 525 guilders to HieronimusDavid Gaubius]).
Hieronimus David Gaubius (d. 1780), Leiden, until 1780; by descent to Constantia Gaubius(d. 1782), Leiden, until 1782; by descent to Maria Amalia Gaubius (1744–88) and Hendrick
Twent (1743–88), Leiden, until 1789 (his sale, Leiden, Delfos, 11 August 1789, no. 28 [for 300
guilders to either A. P. or H. J. Delfos]).
Chaplin, London, by 1836.
Edmund Higginson, Esq., Saltmarsh Castle, Herefordshire, purchased on his behalf by W.
Artaria by 1842 (his sale, London, Christie’s, 4 June 1846, no. 159 [for £210 to Chaplin]).
Chaplin, London, by 1846.
Robert Field, London (his sale, Christie and Manson, London, 3–6 June 1856, no. 525 [for© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Peasants Merrymaking Outside an Inn (Previously “Fair at
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Page 10 of 13£106]).
(Anonymous sale, London, 1864, no. 20, bought in).
C. J. Nieuwenhuys, Brussels (his sale, Brussels, Le Roy, 4 May 1883, no. 19).
Charles T. Yerkes (1837–1905), New York (his sale, New York, American Art Association,
Mendelssohn Hall, 5–8 April 1910, no. 140 [to E. Brandus]).
E. Brandus, New York, by 1910.
John W. Gates, New York.
[F. Kleinberger & Cie, Paris, by 1921].
Angell-Norris Collection, Chicago, by 1923; by descent to Lavern Norris Gaynor by 1981; bywhom given to Northwestern University, Chicago; from whom acquired by Elizabeth Lindsay
Corbett.
Elizabeth Lindsay Corbett, by 1989 (sale, Christie’s, New York, 31 May 1989, no. 124,
unsold; sale, Sotheby’s, New York, 28 January 1999, no. 231, unsold; sale, Sotheby’s,London, 5 July 2006, no. 29; [Johnny van Haeften Ltd., London]).
From whom acquired by the present owner in 2006.

Exhibition History
Chicago, The Art Institute of Chicago, “Paintings from the Collection of R. F. Angell, Mr. andMrs. William Cresner, Mr. and Mrs. Max Epstein, Martin A. Ryerson,” Summer–Fall 1923 [lentby the Angell-Norris Collection].
Chicago, The Art Institute of Chicago, long-term loan, May 1923–January 1965 [lent by theAngell-Norris Collection].
Chicago, The Renaissance Society at The University of Chicago, “Know What You See,” 6
October–7 November 1970 [lent by the Angell-Norris Collection].
Philadelphia, Philadelphia Museum of Art, November 2009–September 2010, temporary loan
[lent by the present owner].
Haarlem, Frans Hals Museum, “Celebrating in the Golden Age,” 11 November 2011–6 May
2012, no. 8 [lent by the present owner].
Philadelphia, Philadelphia Museum of Art, on loan with the permanent collection, May
2012–May 2015 [lent by the present owner].
Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, “Class Distinctions: Dutch Painting in the Age of Rembrandt
and Vermeer,” 11 October 2015–18 January 2016; Kansas City, Nelson-Atkins Museum, 24
February–29 May 2016, no. 67 [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 [lentby the present owner].
Moscow, The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, “The Age of Rembrandt and Vermeer:
Masterpieces of 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 thepresent owner].

References
Smith, John. A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch, Flemish andFrench Painters. 9 vols. London, 1829–42, 9: 496–97, no. 59.
A Descriptive Catalogue of the Gallery of Pictures Collected by Edmund Higginson, Esq. Of
Saltmarshe. London, 1842, 66, no. 20.
Van Westrheene, Tobias. Jan Steen. Étude sur L’Art en Hollande. The Hague, 1856, no. 94
Van Westrheene, Tobias. Jan Steen; Historische-romantische Schetsen. Leiden, 1864,
125–26.
Bredius, Abraham. Jan Steen. Met honderd platen bevattende 101 afbeeldingen in
photogravure van zijne beste werken. Amsterdam, 1927, no. 56.
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 translatedby Edward G. Hawke, 1: 170–71, no. 652. 8 vols. London, 1907–28. Originally published as
Beschreibendes und kritisches Verzeichnis der Werke der hervorragendsten höllandischen
Maler des XVII. Jahrhunderts. 10 vols. Esslingen and Paris, 1907–28.
W.A. P. “The Angell Collection.” Bulletin of the Art Institute of Chicago 17, no. 6 (September
1923): 50–53.
A Guide to the Paintings in the Permanent Collection: The Art Institute of Chicago. Chicago,
1925; rev. ed., 1932, 190.
Braun, Karel. Alle schilderijen van Jan Steen. Rotterdam, 1980, 119, no. 239.
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Tummers, 68–69, no. 8. Exh. cat., Haarlem, Frans Hals Museum. Rotterdam, 2011.
Baer, Ronni, ed. Class Distinctions: Dutch Painting in the Age of Rembrandt and Vermeer.
© 2020 The Leiden Collection

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Exh. cat., Boston, Museum of Fine Arts; Kansas City, Nelson-Atkins Museum. New York,2015, 18–19, 249, 255, 258, no. 67.
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Museum of China. Beijing, 2017
Yeager-Crasselt, Lara. “Peasants Merrymaking Outside an Inn.” In Rembrandt and His Time:
Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection. Edited by Lara Yeager-Crasselt, 134–35; 186, no.
57. Translated by Li Ying. Exh. cat. Beijing, National Museum of China. Beijing, 2017.
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Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection. Exh. cat. Shanghai, Long Museum, West Bund.
Shanghai, 2017, 142, 144–45.
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Zwolle and The Hague, 2018.
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and Vermeer: Masterpieces of The Leiden Collection. Edited by Polina Lyubimova, 196–97;
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Abu Dhabi, Louvre Abu Dhabi. London, 2019. [Exhibition catalogue also published in Frenchand Arabic.]

Versions
Drawing

1. Pieter Leonard Delfos after Jan Steen, The Fair at Warmond, black chalk on paper, 45.3 x
63.5 cm. On the verso annotated ‘De Warmondze Kermis.’© 2020 The Leiden CollectionPowered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

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Technical Summary
The support, a single piece of medium weight, plain-weave fabric, has been lined. All four tacking
margins have been almost entirely removed, although a remnant of primed canvas along theupper edge remains. Broad cusping along the upper and lower edges and slight cusping along thevertical edges indicates that the support dimensions have not been significantly altered. There is
one paper label and two numerical inscriptions, but no wax seals, import stamps or stencils along
the lining or stretcher.
A dark red-brown ground has been thinly and evenly applied. The oil paint has been thinly applied
allowing the canvas weave to remain visible across much of the surface. Low ridges of impastoand soft brushmarks indicate a paint mixture rich in medium or diluted to the point that the paintflowed and leveled as it came off the brush. Pentimenti indicate changes in positions of the dog
and the figure’s leg along the far right holding the bird cage, and a possible adjustment in thearea of the extended arm of the woman at the lower left holding a baby.
No underdrawing is readily apparent in infrared images captured at 780–1000 nanometers. Two
minor compositional changes visible in the images heighten the gaiety of the scene. Originally, theman on the right of the encircled dancers had his head bowed forward rather than thrown back,with an open mouth conveying exuberance; additionally the blond girl being appraised by the manwith his back turned to the viewer at the center of the composition had a less revealing
décolletage.
The painting is signed in dark paint along the lower center but undated.
The painting has not undergone conservation treatment since its acquisition in 2007 and remains
in a good state of preservation.[1]Technical Summary Endnotes

1. Entry based on a 2011 examination report by Terry Lignelli, associate paintings conservator,
Philadelphia Museum of Art.

© 2020 The Leiden Collection