Ein Bürgermeister von Delft und seine Tochter

For a long time the seated man was taken for a mayor of Delft, which is how the painting still gets its name. He was really Adolf Croeser, a grain merchant who lived across the canal from Jan Steen on the Oude Delft. The girl beside him is his daughter Catharina, and in 1655, the year Steen signed the step she stands on, she turned 13. The church rising behind them is the Oude Kerk, where she had been baptised. A poor woman and her small child have stopped at the foot of the stair to ask for something, and Croeser sits in his good black clothes and does not quite look at them. Steen, better known for his noisy tavern scenes, kept this one still and quiet.