The Christening

Christening scenes were an established Dutch genre subject, offering painters the chance to depict the full social spectrum from proud parents to gossips and neighbors gathered around a domestic ceremony. Jan Steen's version of 1663 is typical in combining the religious occasion with an affectionate, slightly irreverent attention to human behavior. By this point in his career, Steen's domestic religious scenes consistently blur the boundary between sacred occasion and comic observation, reflecting a society that had thoroughly domesticated Reformed Christian practice.

The interior is bathed in warm household light that illuminates the infant and mother while allowing peripheral figures to recede into shadow. Steen renders the crowd of well-wishers with his characteristic gallery of expression—approval, curiosity, amusement. Textiles and domestic objects fill the middle ground with characteristic detail.