Garden Party

In 1619 the Dutch Republic was ten years into a truce in its long war with Spain, and Holland's merchant families had money to spend and to show. That year Esaias van de Velde, who had just moved from Haarlem to The Hague, painted two fashionable couples dining out of doors on a panel about half a metre wide. Scenes like this were new. The Frans Hals Museum credits Van de Velde with introducing the garden party to Haarlem painting, and Dirck Hals, Frans Hals's younger brother, went on to make the merry company a genre of its own. Viewers of the time would also have read a warning in it. A garden of love was a place of luxury and desire, and its pleasures were understood to be fleeting. The couples sit among the greenery at a table laid with magnificent silver.