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Merry Company in an Arbor

Creator

Dutch Artist · 1589–1662

Painter, draftsman, and poet, Adriaen van de Venne rejected the international grand manner based on antique models and created a new style based on Holland's own idioms. Although largely self-taught, he also studied with local painters who may have taught him the grisaille technique--painting in shades of gray--that characterizes his later work. By 1614 he was in Middelburg, where his earliest dat

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Date: 1615
Medium: Oil on panel
Culture: Dutch
Department: Paintings
Institution: Getty Museum

At the left of this small landscape, a group of maidens make music under an arbor of flowers. In an enclosed area to the right, two women sit on a net used for catching finches. From all sides, youths spy on the women, perching in trees or hiding behind bushes or tree trunks. One bold voyeur clings to the top of the arbor, peering down at the women below. Another, entangled in a net, is apprehended by a soberly dressed woman, while two jesters above have fallen out of the trees. This light-hearted painting by Adriaen van de Venne was part of a series of four landscapes representing the seasons. This painting, thought to represent spring, and its companion, [A Jeu de Paume Before a Country Palace](http://www.getty.edu/art/collection/objects/720/adriaen-van-de-venne-a-jeu-de-paume-before-a-country-palace-dutch-about-1614/) (A Ball Game Before a Country Palace), both include imagery relating to love.

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