Jan Havicksz. Steen

Anonymous sale, The Hague, Macalester Loup, 20 August 1806, lot 18, for 54 guilders; 
Where (probably) bought by Johan Gabriel Schwarzmann (1739–1812);
Thence by descent to Maria Anna Schwarzmann (1778–1847), married to Pierre Bartholomeus van den Hove (1763–1839);
Thence by descent to their daughter Anna Maria Ludicova van den Hove (1822–55), who married Eduard Theodor Leon Speyart van Woerden (1813–81);
Thence by descent to Cornelius L.M.E.J.E. Speyart van Woerden (1849–1911);
Thence by descent.

C. Hofstede de Groot, A Catalogue Raisonné..., vol. I, London 1907, p. 93, cat. no. 345;
K. Braun, Jan Steen, Rotterdam 1980, p. 149, cat. no. A-202.

This painting attests to Steen’s interest in the Haarlem tradition of low-life genre, in a composition akin to those of Adriaen van Ostade (1610–84), the artist's teacher. Though an early work, Steen’s characteristic interest in anecdotal details and daily human interaction is already evident in the way that the grandmother’s quotidian activity is made the subject of a scene of domestic virtue. The style and execution of the figures relate to other early works by Steen, such as the Keisnijding, Boijmans Van Beuningen Museum, Rotterdam,¹ in which the rendering and characterisation of the surgeon’s face is most similar to that of the grandmother here.²

1. Inv. no. 1827.

2. See Braun 1980, p. 96, cat. no. 88, reproduced p. 97.