Harpsichord Lesson

Jan Steen completed this satirical scene between 1660 and 1669. An old man in outdated clothing pretends to give a music lesson to a fashionably dressed young woman seated at a harpsichord. The setting suggests wealth: carved doorways, gilt-framed paintings, fine silks.

A large key hangs prominently at the composition's center. Steen placed it deliberately above the old man's hand as it hovers near the young woman's fingers. The symbolism isn't subtle. The key points to his intentions, while the social gulf between teacher and student makes his interest appear ridiculous. She sits reserved and proper, accomplished in her music, while he plays the fool.

Richard Seymour-Conway, 4th Marquess of Hertford, acquired the painting in 1859. Lady Wallace later bequeathed it to the nation in 1897, and it now hangs at the Wallace Collection in London. Steen's gift for psychological insight and wry humor made him one of the Dutch Golden Age's finest genre painters. His chaotic household scenes gave rise to the Dutch expression "a Jan Steen household," meaning a messy or disorderly home.