Bring your favorites together in your free personal gallery.
Your galleryThe Family Concert
Look first
- What catches your attention?
- Where does your eye go next?
- What would you ask about this work?
Show me
Find the boy bowing the cello with his pipe, then look for the lute player on the window bench, the dog and cat on the floor and the windmill outside.
Making music together was a way for young Dutch men and women to meet, and the Art Institute of Chicago reads this crowded room of 1666 as a courtship scene. In front, a boy copies the adults, using a pipe as a bow on the cello, and snaps a string, a sly hint at passion out of control. Steen built his scenes on the idea, current in his day, that comedy holds up a mirror to daily life.
Oil on canvas · 86.6 × 101 cm · Art Institute of Chicago · Dutch Golden Age
Look again
What do you notice now?
Try a quick sketch
Take a minute to sketch on any paper. No upload needed.
What did you draw first? What did you leave out?
Details and source
- Museum title
- The Family Concert
- Artist
- Jan Steen (Dutch, 1626–1679)
- Date
- 1666
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- 86.6 × 101 cm (34 1/8 × 39 3/4 in.); Framed: 101.6 × 115.6 × 5.1 cm (40 × 45 1/2 × 2 in.)
- Credit line
- Gift of Timothy B. Blackstone
- Image license
- CC0 1.0 · Public domain
- Museum record
- Art Institute of Chicago
Artist’s life 1626–1679
View in the AtlasGaller’s rooms and hanging scale are imagined. The image is the museum’s original digital reproduction.