Jan Havicksz. Steen

Wybrand Hendriks, Amsterdam, until 1832;
His sale, Amsterdam, Albertus Brondgeest, February 27, 1832, to Gruyter;
Widow of P.J. van Oosthuisje van Rijsenberg, the Netherlands;
Fred Pocock Bulley, Gloucester, until 1921;
By whom anonymously sold, London, Sotheby's, December 14, 1921, to Sabin;
Frank T. Sabin, London, until 1924;
Lord Cromwell;     
With Bernard Houthakker, Amsterdam, 1928-1929;
With D. Katz, Dieren, Basel and den Haag, c.1933;
Marion Davies, Los Angeles, until 1955;
Gift of the Marion Davies Collection to The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, 1955 (acc. no. 55.80.1).

Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, Tentoonstelling van Oude Kunst door de Vereeniging van handelaren in Oude Kunst in Nederland, 1929, no. 137 (lent by Bernard Houthakker);
La Jolla, La Jolla Museum of Art, Dutch and Flemish Paintings of the Northern Renaissance, June 13-September 20, 1964, no. 31.

R. R. Tatlock, in Burlington Magazine vol. XL, March 1922, reproduced no. 139;
Tentoonstelling van Oude Kunst door de Vereeniging van handelaren in Oude Kunst in Nederland, exhibition catalogue, Amsterdam 1929, p. 38, cat. no. 137;
Art Quarterly 19, Summer 1956, reproduced, p. 199;
R. Brown, "Recent Gifts", in Los Angeles County Museum, Bulletin of the Art Division. 8, no. 4, 1957, pp. 7-8, reproduced fig. 2;
Dutch and Flemish Paintings of the Northern Renaissance, exhibition catalogue, La Jolla 1964, no. 31;
K. Braun, Alle tot nu toe bekende schilderijen van Jan Steen, Rotterdam 1980, pp. 124-125, cat. no. 268, reproduced;
P. Sutton, Dutch Art in America, Grand Rapids and Kampen 1986, p. 347 (under abbreviated list of paintings);
S. Schaefer, et al., European Painting and Sculpture in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Los Angeles, Los Angeles 1987, p. 92, reproduced;
A. Wheelock and H. Chapman, et. al., Jan Steen: Painter and Storyteller, exhibition catalogue, Washington D.C. 1996, p. 206, reproduced, fig. 1.

The following condition report has been provided by Simon Parkes of Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc. 502 East 74th St. New York, NY 212-734-3920, simonparkes@msn.com , an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. This painting has not been restored recently. It has an old glue lining and while it has been cleaned more recently, the restorations have blanched, in the lighter colors particularly, and are mostly clearly visible. The blanched restorations are clearly visible in the dress of the drunken lady at the head of the table on the right. Similar restorations exist in the legs and boots of the child standing on the table, in the same child's cloak and in the candelabra being held by the child behind. Other retouches are apparent in the helmet of one of the figures behind the main group, and there is a recent retouch in the canvas in the lower center. In the bulk of the picture, the condition is uncompromised and lovely. The restoration is misleading and rather clumsy but if one looks at the cat and overturned urn in the lower right for instance, the condition here and in many other areas is quite clearly very good. Properly cleaning and retouching this picture would be extremely beneficial.
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

In Twelfth Night, as in so many of his paintings, Jan Steen delights in the portrayal of merriment and excess.  Rooted in Medieval Catholicism, the Feast of the Epiphany, or "Twelfth Night," celebrated the Biblical story of the adoration of the Magi, their journey to Bethlehem to see the Christ Child, and King Herod's subsequent Massacre of the Innocents.  Although by the mid-seventeenth century the Protestant Reformation and the prominence of Calvinism in Dutch society had greatly curtailed the celebration of Twelfth Night, Netherlandish Catholics still observed it in the privacy of their own homes or even in local taverns. 

The feast centered on the choice of a king from among the participants, a selection that was left entirely to chance.  This mock king represented Herod, the unfit ruler, while the three Magi were represented by three lit candles, or in the case of the present painting, by the three-stemmed candelabra on the table.  Steen often featured child kings in his representations of the scene, as he does not only in the present painting, but also in the works in the Staatliche Museen Kassel (inv. no. GK 296) and in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (acc. no. 54.102). 

The present work is related to a number of Steen's paintings of the same subject that all seem to date to the 1660's.¹  Most closely related, however, is the Twelfth Night in Kassel.  Indeed, in both compositions, the child king stands on the left, raised on a piece of furniture and next to the symbolic candelabra.  In both works, too, he is about to take his first sip of wine from the cup--the climatic moment of the celebration.  Although the king in the present picture seems slightly younger than the Kassel king, the smiling nun who hands him the cup is an almost exact quotation.  Other participants in the celebration include musicians, the fool, cook, steward, and other traditional members of a king's court.  Waffles, the customary food of Twelfth Night feasts, also feature prominently in Steen's compositions.

Steen heightens the climatic tension of this work by focusing all of the attention on the king; indeed, the entire company seems about to yell out, "the king drinks!", in accordance with tradition.²  The musicians, who have just entered through the open door in the background, fill the air with their music, while even the cat and dog in the foreground seem determined not to miss out on the fun.  And yet, in spite of all this merriment, there is an undercurrent of human frailty that can be detected in Steen's storytelling.  The eggshells strewn about the floor in the foreground, as well as the overly silly and foolish behavior of some of the characters hint obliquely at the foibles and shortcomings of human nature and the fine line that exists between joy and sorrow. 

1. A. Wheelock, et al., Jan Steen: Painter and Storyteller, exhibition catalogue, Washington DC 1996, cat. nos. 18, 33.
2.  Ibid., 157.