A Mayor of Delft and his Daughter
A well-to-do man on a bench outside his house on the Oude Delft canal, a beggar approaching, his daughter beside him — a portrait set on a real Delft street.
Oude Delft
The painting shows a real, identified place that you can find today. The exact spot the artist worked from is not necessarily known.
A Mayor of Delft and his Daughter — at a glance
- Artist
- Jan Steen (1626–1679)
- Year
- 1655
- Movement
- Dutch Golden Age
- Place
- A canal-side street in Delft (the Oude Delft), the Netherlands
- Viewpoint
- A house-front on the canal, with the Oude Kerk tower — canal, bench-fronted houses and church survive
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- c. 82 × 68 cm
- Now at
- Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
Overview
The Burgher of Delft and his Daughter is an unusually grand outdoor portrait by Jan Steen, dated 1655 — the year he was living in Delft. A prosperous man in black sits on the stone bench (stoep) in front of his house; his young daughter in white stands at his side; a poor woman with a child holds out a petition or begs from the pavement. Behind, a canal with a bridge, gabled brick houses, and a church tower. It is oil on canvas, about 82 by 68 cm, and it hangs in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.
Where was A Mayor of Delft and his Daughter painted?
Scholarship The setting is a canal-side street in Delft — traditionally identified with the Oude Delft, the city's oldest canal — with the leaning tower of the Oude Kerk (Old Church) visible in the background at the left. The Oude Delft canal, its bench-fronted brick houses and the Oude Kerk with its famously tilted tower all survive, so the kind of street, and the church, can be found today; Steen has arranged the specific house and view for the portrait.
What is in the painting?
The man sits square on the bench by his door, hat on, a paper in his hand, looking out at the viewer; the girl, in a pale satin dress, leans on the bench arm beside him. To the right, a woman in worn clothes with a baby stands on the street holding out a sheet of paper. A red-shuttered house, a canal bridge, moored boats, gabled fronts and the church tower fill the background.
Look closely
The stoep bench
The man sits on the stone bench built against his house front — the Dutch stoep, a place to sit and watch the street.
The daughter in satin
The girl in a pale satin dress leans on the bench arm beside her father.
The begging woman
A poor woman with a baby holds out a sheet of paper from the pavement — a note of social contrast.
The Oude Kerk tower
The leaning church tower shows behind the gabled canal houses at the left.
Analysis
Composition and technique
A seated portrait pair on their own doorstep, with the canal street and church as a real backdrop and a beggar for contrast.
Scholarship Steen — usually a painter of rowdy interiors — gives the sitters a dignified, frontal, almost civic presence on their stoep, and sets them against a carefully painted Delft street. The approaching poor woman introduces a note of social contrast, perhaps of charity.
History & provenance
The painting is in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.
Sources
- Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam — collection entry for Jan Steen, ‘The Burgher of Delft and his Daughter’ (1655)
- H. Perry Chapman et al., ‘Jan Steen: Painter and Storyteller’ (National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1996)
Related paintings
The Courtyard of a House in Delft
1658
De Hooch's Delft courtyard of 1658 — the same town, the same quiet domestic setting.
The Little Street
1658
Vermeer's Delft house-fronts, painted a few years later.
A View of Delft
1652
Fabritius's wide-angle Delft street of 1652 — the Nieuwe Kerk instead of the Oude Kerk.