Riotous Schoolroom with a Snoozing Schoolmaster (detail)

The painter’ss 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 boy beside him has stolen his glasses and pokes his own pipe through his cap, while another blows on what looks like a pea-shooter with full force towards the master’s face. These misdemeanours appear as nothing in comparison to the exploits of the youngsters in the foreground, one of whom urinates into an earthenware jug held by his friend, while another wipes the bottom of a child and holds the soiled cloth up to her schoolmaster’s nose.