# "In weelde siet toe" \(In Luxury, Beware\) [View the canonical artwork record]() ## Artwork - Artist: [STEEN, Jan]() - Date: 1651-1700 - Technique: Oil on canvas, 105 x 145 cm ## Commentary The complex, multi-figure composition probably represents several proverbs the meaning of them is not completely known. Although the scene depicted here in many respects recalls the unruly "household of Jan Steen" - images painted by Steen that purportedly reflect his own life and household - its content is far more complex. It is true that the depiction contains scores of references to the "dissolute household", a motif that Steen embroidered on countless paintings, yet quite correctly the picture once was called a proverb painting. The idea of proverb painting recalls the <a onclick="return OpenOther\('/html/b/bruegel/pieter\_e/03/index.html'\)" href="/html/b/bruegel/pieter\_e/03/index.html">famous one by Pieter Bruegel the Elder.</a> Steen presumably knew this painting or <a onclick="return OpenOther\('/html/b/bruegel/pieter\_y/proverb.html'\)" href="/html/b/bruegel/pieter\_y/proverb.html">one of its copies by his son.</a> It is also possible that Steen relied on a print with a collection of proverbs. ## Related artworks - [A Burgher of Delft and His Daughter]() - [A Merry Party \(detail\)]() - [A Merry Party \(detail\)]() - [A Merry Party]() - [Argument over a Card Game]() - [Arrival of a Visitor]() - ['As the Old Sing, So Pipe the Young' \(detail\)]() - ['As the Old Sing, So Pipe the Young']() - [Baptism \("So de oude songen, so pypen de jongen"\)]() - [Before an Inn]() - [Celebrating the Birth]() - [Christ among the Doctors]() ## Attribution [Web Gallery of Art]()