2-999-701 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

Merrymakers in an Inn, 1630-1639. This party of fashionably dressed young people is interrupted by intruders with masks and a lighted torch suggesting that these revels take place during Carnival. Well-bred young ladies did not join parties in public inns; these smiling women are prostitutes. Women forced by poverty into prostitution had to rent such garments, as they themselves were rented. The lap dog gnawing a bone adds a crude, realistic and amusing counterpoint to the apparent elegance of the scene. In his own time the artist was known especially for small cabinet paintings of scenes of merriment. The style of execution seen here is somewhat less painterly than one might expect and it is possible that it is a product of his workshop.