A Boy Seated at a Table, Smoking

Boonen specialized in intimate small-scale subjects in the tradition of the Leiden fijnschilders, which had been established earlier in the seventeenth century by Dou. In the present finely painted interior scene a young man wearing a rich costume with slashed sleeves leans against the back of his chair and puffs on a long clay pipe. In his left hand he holds a glass of wine and a violin lies on the table which is covered with a fine oriental carpet. The look on the young man’s face might suggests a meditative interpretation, but the presence of the violin and the glass of wine might also imply an alternative reading as an Allegory of the Senses.