Jan Steen - Beware of Luxury

• Title: Beware of Luxury (In Weelde Siet Toe)
• Artist: Jan Steen (1625-1679)
• Date: 1663
• Medium: Oil on canvas
• Dimensions: 105 x 145 cm

“Beware of Luxury” depicts a scene of chaos, excess and debauchery in a bourgeois house.

Engraved on the painting’s frame (not visible here) is its moral- “In good times beware the consequences...”.

In the middle, an obviously loose-living young woman whose eyes cannot look straight from being drunk, who is smiling flirtatiously at the viewer and who is holding a glass of wine in one hand and and a pitcher in the other. Slouching behind is a woman asleep probably because of having drunk and eaten too much. All around one can find examples of poor behavior, such as a young child helping herself to something from a cabinet, a boy trying out a pipe, a dog on the table eating the pie, objects and food scattered on the floor, etc. In the background, a Quaker with a duck on his shoulder is reading out pious texts and a basket of instruments of punishment is hanging from the ceiling as a warning of the consequences for sinners.