Artwork
The Drunken Couple
The Drunken Couple is an oil painting by the Dutch Golden Age artist Jan Steen. It dates from 1660 and is held in the collection of the collection Adriaan van der Hoop.
About this work
Overview
It presents a domestic scene characterized by disarray and a lack of awareness, typical of Steen's narrative approach to genre painting.
Jan Steen's painting, The Drunken Couple, rendered in oil on an oak panel, dates from approximately 1655 to 1665. This work is currently housed in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. It presents a domestic scene characterized by disarray and a lack of awareness, typical of Steen's narrative approach to genre painting. The artwork serves as a commentary on human folly through its depiction of everyday life.
Subject & Meaning
The painting captures a scene of profound inebriation, where the central figures are so overcome by drink that they remain oblivious to the figures lurking in the background. This lack of perception is underscored by the presence of an owl depicted in a print above the couple. In the seventeenth century, the owl commonly served as a symbolic representation of foolishness and impaired vision, often associated with an inability to discern clearly, particularly in daylight.
Own this work as a print
Artist & collection
Artist
Jan Havickszoon Steen was a Dutch Golden Age painter, one of the leading genre painters of the 17th century.
Paintings of physicians by Jan Steen
The Dissolute Household
Merry Company on a Terrace
Esther, Ahasuerus, and Haman
Interior of an inn with an old man amusing himself with the landlady and two men playing backgammon, known as 'Two kinds of games'
The Happy Family
Bathsheba after the Bath
Woman at her Toilet