ARTWORKS

A Man blowing Smoke at a Drunken Woman, Another Man with a Wine-pot

Jan Steen (1625/1626–1679)

The National Gallery, London

A Man blowing Smoke at a Drunken Woman, Another Man with a Wine-pot

Image credit: The National Gallery, London

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A young woman, her blouse and jacket falling open rather immodestly, has drifted to sleep in her chair. In one hand is an empty wine glass, in the other a clay pipe. One man blows a stream of smoke towards her ear while a second looks on laughing. This seems like a tavern scene, but in the background are the curtains of a bed – it’s more likely we are in a brothel, where the sleeping woman works.

To modern viewers this sort of leering mockery might not make a very attractive scene. But in seventeenth-century Holland, when both alcohol and tobacco were considered dangerous intoxicants and a potential risk to a woman’s sexual virtue, it would have been a source of justified derision. Or, in this case, an example of a joke which seems a little sour today, but would have been perfectly acceptable 350 years ago.

The National Gallery, London

London

Read more on The National Gallery, London
Title

A Man blowing Smoke at a Drunken Woman, Another Man with a Wine-pot

Date

about 1660-5

Medium

Oil on oak

Measurements

H 30.2 x W 24.8 cm

Accession number

NG2555

Acquisition method

Salting Bequest, 1910

Work type

Painting

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Normally on display at

The National Gallery, London

Trafalgar Square, London, Greater London WC2N 5DN England

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Artist or maker

Jan Steen

1625/1626–1679

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