Jan Steen

Herkomst: Staatliche Kunsthalle, Karlsruhe (inv.nr 260)


Schilder: Jan Steen


Techniek: Olieverf op eiken paneel


Afmeting: 57 x 49,5 cm


Beschrijving:


Schepel en bal, te gebruiken voor het 'colven door den beugel' of voor het klosspel

Details:

Herkomst: Slot Skokloster, Bålsta, Zweden (LSH_DIG3536)

Schilder: Jan Steen


Techniek: Olieverf op canvas


Afmeting: 66,7 x 96,5 cm


Beschrijving: 

In de linker onderhoek zien we een paartje, waarvan de man een colfstok voor zich uitduwt. Iets rechtsboven daarvan zien we een colver op het ijs.

Details:

English



Figures before an inn, merry-making and playing a game of 'beugelen', by Jan Havicksz. Steen (Leiden 1626 - 1679 Leiden).

Description

The subject of this picture is as anything else the time of day. The distant sky, whose colours anticipate sunset, dominate the upper part of the picture and the distant village and dunes, defines its mood, while the long shadows cast by the peasants playing kolf in the foreground underscore this mood, reminding us that the heat of a summer's day is cooling as afternoon gives way to evening. The discarded spade in the left foreground suggests that the players may well have done a hard day's work before gathering outside the inn to drink, smoke and play, although the amorous advances that one of them is making on the innkeeper's daughter may perhaps suggest that he has made a head start on the sauce. While Jan Steen painted pictures with a more dominant landscape content such as this one in the earlier part of his career, the understated sophistication of this work and its underlying mood shows that by the time he painted it he had attained a considerable degree of maturity. Braun's dating of this work to circa 1650-54 is convincing, although from 1653 onwards Steen's figures become larger than here, and stay that way, so this picture probably dates from the first quarter of the 1650s.1 At that time Steen, who had just married the daughter of the landscape painter Jan van Goyen, was living in the Hague.

Although the game played outside the inn is rightly called kolf, it seems to be a rather different game to the one played on ice and to be seen in winter landscapes by Steen's contemporaries. Kolf as seen here was a popular game often played in the gardens of inns, and may be, as Braun suggests, perhaps the precursor of "mini-golf".2 In fact, the game of kolf survives in The Netherlands, although it has evolved substantially since the 17th Century, and like the modern game of golf, has little in common with its antecedent.

Steen's family were brewers, as Steen was himself briefly to become in Delft (and he later became an innkeeper), and the subject matter of this picture was no doubt more than familiar to him. By this date Steen was already treating his figures in a comic, caricatural manner, and this can be seen in several of the figures here, especially perhaps in the protuberant jaw of the peasant playing the ball. Although there is no documentary support for the hypothesis, it is tempting to see in works like this one stylistic evidence that Steen may have studied with Ostade in Haarlem. It is perhaps more likely that Steen noticed Ostade's prints of scenes outside taverns. It may be worth noting too that while Steen married Jan van Goyen's daughter, and the two painters are said to have been friends, there is no stylistic evidence whatsoever that Van Goyen influenced the landscapes of his son-in-law in any painting.

Oil on oak panel. 49,7 by 67,5 cm; 19 5/8 by 26 1/2 in. Signed lower right ‘JS (in compendium) teen’

Provenance

• Prof. Dr. Jan Bleuland, Utrecht (1756-1838); His deceased sale, Utrecht, Lamme, 6 May 1839, lot 309 for 880 florins;

• Municks van Cleef, Utrecht; His deceased sale, Utrecht, Paris, 4 April 1864, lot 88, for 3,350 francs;

• With D. Katz, Dieren;

• Mrs. A. Ongering-Schwarte (1890-1967), by 1958; By whom sold, London, Sotheby's, 26 March 1969, lot 81, for £20,000 to Tan Bunzl;

• Miss A. C. Innes; Sold by order of her Executors, London, Christie's, 7 July 1972, lot 26, for 30,000 Guineas to Jermyn;

• Mrs. George F. Getty II; By whom sold, London, Christie's, 28 November 1975, lot 87 for £26,000;

• Private Collection, New York, until sold, New York, Sotheby's, 12 January 1979, lot 126 for $85,000;

With Richard Green, London by 1980;

• Acquired by the parents of the present owners in the early 1980s.

• For sale: Tefaf 2015, Tefaf 2017 (Koetser Gallery, Zürich)

Exhibiition

• Haarlem, Frans Hals Museum, 1922; • St. Louis, Art Museum, on loan 1973-5.

Litterature

• T. van Westrheene, Jan Steen: Étude Sur L'Art En Hollande, The Hague 1856, nos. 44 & 368; • C. Hofstede de Groot, A Catalogue Raisonné..., vol. I, London 1907, p. 198, no. 742;

• K. Braun, Alle tot nu bekende schilderijen van Jan Steen, Rotterdam 1980, p. 90, no. 31, reproduced p. 91.

Particuliere verzameling (Groot-Brittannië)

Source: Do Smit

Het 'St. Nicolaasfeest' uit 1665 - 1668 van Jan Havicksz. Steen (Leiden, 1626 (...?) - Leiden, 1679). Geschilderd in opdracht van een katholieke opdrachtgever (vergelijk de sobere versie voor een protestantse opdrachtgever)

Olieverf op linnen. 82 x 70 cm

Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam

De Schotse kliek die de jongen triomfantelijk in de hoogte steekt is wellicht uit Schotland ingevoerd, of misschien werd de kliek door een Hollandse kliekenmaker naar Schots model nagemaakt. Ook toont hij een leren bal.

Geen andere schilder heeft de Nederlandsche samenleving zo uitvoerig in beeld gebracht als Jan Steen. Kennelijk is niet iedereen zoet geweest, maar de jongeman die de colf kreeg lijkt zeer content. Het afgebeelde snoepgoed, bij dit eigenlijk verboden katholieke feest, is zeer herkenbaar. In Utrecht was zelfs het maken daarvan, 'eenige beeldekens in brood ofte koeck te backen', sinds 1655 verboden. Rechts in beeld staat tegen het bankje een ruitvormig zoet brood, de zogenaamde deuve- of duivekater (eig. duivelkater naar 'cater', de middelnederlandse naam voor de duivel). Op het bakje ligt een appel waar een muntstuk uitsteekt. Deze surprise verbeeldt het 'appeltje voor de dorst'.

Literatuur

• Serendipity on Early Golf van Robin Bargmann, pagina 65. 2010. ISBN 978-90-816364-1-4

• Kolven, het plaisir om sig in dezelve te diverteren by C.A.M. (Cees) van Woerden, page 44. SPOU Utrecht, 2002. ISBN 90-5479-051-2
Download
• Afbeelding in groter formaat (zie bijlage; jpg, 11.5 MB)

Landscape with an Inn and Skittles, c. 1656 - 1660. Jan Steen (Leiden, 1626 – buried 3 februari 1679, Leiden)

Landschap met een herberg en kegelaars, ca. 1656 - 1660. Jan Steen

You can see the corner of a kolf course with a ball at the right hand corner.

Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, USA

Source: Do Smit

English, Nederlands
English

Twelfth Night (= January 6) (c 1670/1671), by Jan Steen (Leiden, 1626 - 3 februari 1679, Leiden)
Oil on panel. 58.4 x 55.9 cm

His Grace the Duke of Bedford and the Trustees of the Bedford Estates
Source: Robin Bargmann
Nederlands

Driekoningenavond (= 6 januari) (ca. 1670/1671), door Jan Steen (Leiden, 1626 - 3 februari 1679, Leiden)
Olieverf op paneel. 58.4 x 55.9 cm
His Grace the Duke of Bedford and the Trustees of the Bedford Estates

Bron: Robin Bargmann