Riotous Schoolroom with a Snoozing Schoolmaster
by STEEN, Jan, Oil on oak panel, 38 x 49 cm
Jan Steen treated the subject of a schoolroom interior several times during his career. His talent for storytelling is given free rein in the present composition, in which the children fill the entire scene, let loose to take as much advantage of their sleeping teacher as possible.
The painting belongs to a long tradition of schoolroom representations, which find their origin in a composition by Pieter Bruegel the Elder.
The painting is signed and dated lower left: JSteen . 1672.