Merry Company

genre

This is one of the earliest of the middle-class conversation pieces. It is typical of the early phase of Dutch genre painting, as can be seen from the limited amount of background, the figures made to turn so that they can be shown full face, the bright, emphatic and varied colours. A map and musical instruments hang on the wall behind the figures, on the floor are weapons, a metal jug and a goblet, while a tiny monkey balances on the chair.

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About the Artist

Willem Pietersz. Buytewech

1591 – 1625

Dutch painter and engraver, nicknamed "Geestige Willem" (Witty Willem). He was active in his native Rotterdam and in Haarlem, where he was closely associated with Frans Hals. Although his surviving output as a painter is tiny, he is one of the most interesting artists during the first years of the great period of Dutch painting. His pictures of dandies, fashionable ladies, topers, and lusty wenches are among the most spirited Dutch genre scenes, and instituted the category known as the "Merry Company" ( Merry Company, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam). His engravings are more numerous, and include genre scenes, fashion plates, and etchings of the Dutch countryside. He had an important influence on painting in Haarlem. His son Willem the Younger (1625-70) was also a painter. An example of his very rare work - a landscape - is in the National Gallery, London.

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