Seen in this light, a child’s upbringing is irrelevant to its development. 15 In other words, it is in feline nature to chase mice, and human nature cannot be changed either. 14 Jacob Cats grouped this and related proverbs together in a chapter called ‘’t Wil al muysen wat van katten komt’ (‘Those born of cats all want to catch mice’). The proverb portrayed in this merry scene warns of the danger of setting a bad example, but it can also be interpreted in a different way. This notorious imitator will repeat anything, just as children do. 12 A parrot (a red-winged macaw) sits on its perch behind her. The foot-warmer with glowing coals beneath her skirt, on which she has placed her feet, may well have erotic connotations. With outstretched arm, she raises her wine glass, which is filled by a servant with a large white napkin over his shoulder. 11 The coloured ribbons in her hair are the same as those on Steen’s hat. Steen depicted her more often, and she is generally identified as his first wife, Grietje van Goyen. 10 At left, the woman slouching in her chair with her blouse half open makes a rather dissolute impression. He plays the bagpipes, an instrument with dubious associations that was played by the basest sort of people. ‘Piping’ is also portrayed by the older boy at far right, who wears a red, furlined hat and is the only figure looking at us. 9 The broadly grinning man at right, clearly Jan Steen himself, mocks his paternal duties by teaching his son to smoke, thus providing a literal portrayal of the younger generation’s ‘copycat piping’ (‘na-pijpen’). 8 But when a man this old becomes a father, it truly is a topsy-turvy world, and further evidence of it is given by the adults, who smoke and drink and watch their bad behaviour being imitated by their offspring. Perched crookedly on the head of the laughing old man at left is a kraamherenmuts, a hat traditionally worn by new fathers. Three generations of one family boisterously celebrate the baptism of the youngest scion, the child in its mother’s lap at the heart of the composition. Steen often clarified his paintings with explanatory texts embedded in the composition. 6 The title is the first line on the sheet of music held by the grandmother, seated at right at the table, who peers through her pince-nez and uses her index finger to follow the text of the ‘Liet’ (song), which goes like this: ‘Soo voer gesongen, soo / na gepepen / dat is al lang / gbleken ick sing u vo / so volcht ons na / van een tot hon jaar’ (‘As it is sung, so it is piped, that’s long been known, I’ll sing first and you follow along, from one to a hundred years’). The painting discussed here portrays a variant of this still-popular proverb. In a painting from the Mauritshuis in the Prince William V Gallery, we read this proverb on a piece of paper tacked to the mantelpiece (inv. 5 The comic possibilities of the proverb must have appealed to Steen, for the exhortation to give children a good upbringing can be portrayed by depicting the very opposite. 4 These are merry scenes, in which children learn to smoke and drink in imitation of their undisciplined parents and grandparents. The one he depicted most often was ‘As the old sing, so pipe the young’.

It stands to reason that Steen liked to paint proverbs, given his fondness for puns, witty ambiguities, anecdotes and jokes (cf. 3 In the seventeenth century, Flemish artists such as Sebastiaan Vrancx, David Teniers the Younger and Jacob Jordaens followed in his footsteps, and the tradition was carried on in the Northern Netherlands by Adriaen van de Venne, the illustrator of Jacob Cats, and by Jan Steen.

His famous and much-copied painting Netherlandish Proverbs of 1559 portrays more than 120 proverbs and sayings. The popularity of the genre is due, above all, to Pieter Bruegel the Elder. The earliest portrayals of proverbs in the Low Countries can be found in the border decorations of late-medieval manuscripts and in tapestries. 2 People appreciated humorous and playful double meanings, in accordance with the classical motto ‘ridendo dicere verum’: ‘mockingly telling the truth’.

1 Jacob Cats, who published his illustrated book of proverbs Spiegel van den Ouden ende Nieuwen Tijdt (Mirror of Old and New Times) in 1632, emphasised that proverbs should be ambiguous.

Proverbs that offered general, educational or moralising truths in a witty and entertaining manner were not only very popular in the seventeenth century, but were also considered useful didactic tools.

Easy cat sip n paint