Steen
JAN, a Dutch painter; born in Leyden, Netherlands, in 1626; studied under Adrian van Ostade; joined the Leyden Guild of Painters in 1648, and for some time carried on the trade of a brewer at Delft. A sympathetic observer of human life, he painted genre pictures from every plane of life, the lowest as well as the highest. The grave humor of his style is best seen in such pictures as the "Doctor Visiting His Patient," a "Cavalier Giving Lessons on the Guitar to a Lady," "Domestic Life," "Tavern Company," "The Oyster Girl," "Work and Idleness," "Bad Company," "Old Age," and particularly the pieces of childhood; e. g., the pictures called "St. Nicholas" and "Twelfth Night."
He died in Leyden in 1679.