It is not known for certain whether Jan Steen (1626?-1679) was a pupil of Nicholaes Knupfer, a native of Leipzig who resided for a time at Leyden, but he certainly worked under Adriaen van Ostade at Haarlem, and later became a pupil of Jan van Goyen, whose daughter Margaretha he married as his first wife. Steen certainly leased a brewery in Delft for six years, and he is frequently mentioned in the archives of that town about 1656; he subsequently kept a tavern in the Langebrug in Leyden in 1672. His art is vivacious if not boisterous, and the strength and versatility he displayed in the nine hundred pictures with which he is justly credited give him a high place among the artists of Holland in the seventeenth century. The frequency with which he painted the _Interior of a Tavern_ (No. 2578) has suggested that he carried on the tradition of the Flemish-Dutch roysterer Adriaen Brouwer; but such scenes, magnificently as they are handled, are apt to become boring in time. This large canvas is dated 1674, and the coat of arms of Charles V. is fastened on to the balcony in which are spectators. The _Merry Company at Table_ (No. 2579) is somewhat sketchy in parts, but the lighting is well regulated, and the canvas is signed in full on the back of a blue-covered chair to the right. That the _Bad Company_ (No. 2580, Plate XXXIV.) is admirably painted will be conceded by all, but refinement is not its distinguishing feature. A young man dressed in a red jacket is sleeping with his head on the lap of a girl, while another girl is relieving him of his watch. The scene is laid in a tavern, on the floor of which are painted with wonderful precision a number of tiny objects. It was not Steen’s habit to paint representations of cultured society such as Terborch delighted in. [Illustration: PLATE XXXIV.—JAN STEEN (1626?-1679) DUTCH SCHOOL No. 2580.—BAD COMPANY (La Mauvaise compagnie) The scene takes place in a tavern. A young man has fallen asleep with his head in the lap of a girl, who is seated to the right of the composition, and holds a glass of wine in her right hand. Another girl has just taken the young man’s watch from his pocket and is giving it to an old woman, who receives it with evident glee. On the left a man sits at a table smoking his pipe, and another is playing the fiddle. Signed in full in the left bottom corner. Painted in oil on panel. 1 ft. 6¾ in. × 1 ft. 2¼ in. (0·47 × 0·36.)] PIETER DE HOOCH