STEEN, Jan (b. 1626, Leiden, d. 1679, Leiden) |
Feast of the Chamber of Rhetoricians near a Town-Gate-Oil on canvas, 64 x 84 cm Private collection | ||
Rhetoricians (in Dutch: Rederijkers) were members of amateur dramatic and literary societies called Rederijkerskamers. Membership was not limited to literary figures: many painters, including Carel van Mander, Hendrick Goltzius, Frans Hals and Adriaen Brouwer were rederijkers. Jan Steen is not known to have been a member, but their public activities, often comic, would obviously have appealed to him. He painted several other pictures depicting them.
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