Jan Miense Molenaer Haarlem circa 1610 - 1668

H.J. Hansen, The Netherlands
By whom sold, Amsterdam, Sotheby Mak van Waay, 2 April 1973, lot 148, to Kouw;
Art market, Bern (Switzerland), where bought by the present owner in the late 1970s.

Dr. Dennis P. Weller has kindly confirmed the attribution to Jan Miense Molenaer on the basis of photographs. He dates the painting to the 1640s or slightly later. In his opinion this work is entirely characteristic of Molenaer's rather coarse peasant interiors which were likely to have been painted for the popular market.

La main chaude (handjeklap in Dutch) was a game already popular in the Middle Ages, and can be seen on ivories and miniatures of the period. It was a popular subject for Dutch 17th Century genre painters. The woman with her hand on the back had to guess who is slapping her hand. As long as she does not know, they will slap her hand again. That is why it is called la main chaude, although the name is of course a double-entendre.