ARTWORKS

A Merry Company at Table

Hendrik Gerritsz. Pot (c.1585–1657)

The National Gallery, London

A Merry Company at Table

Image credit: The National Gallery, London

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Scenes set in brothels (called bordeeltjes in Dutch) were a popular genre in seventeenth-century painting. In this picture, two young women sit on the laps of their clients; the much older woman in the centre runs the business. Although the men are the paying customers, it is the women who are clearly in charge here. The younger ones both look directly at us with a knowing glance, while the brothel-keeper watches on wryly. The men are too drunk or distracted to notice who is running the show, or that we are watching them.

We are clearly intended to be amused by what is going on, but that doesn’t mean that Hendrick Pot expected his customers to approve of such behaviour. As well as entertainments, pictures of this sort were understood to be cautioning against high living, manipulative women – as Pot would have seen it – and the consequences of immorality.

The National Gallery, London

London

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Title

A Merry Company at Table

Date

1630

Medium

Oil on oak

Measurements

H 32.3 x W 49.6 cm

Accession number

NG1278

Acquisition method

Bought, 1889

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

Hendrik Gerritsz. Pot

c.1585–1657

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