Portrait of Jacoba Maria van Wassenaer (1654-1683), known as 'The Poultry Yard'

In 1660 Jan Steen was living in the village of Warmond, near Leiden, and the widower Jan van Wassenaer of nearby Lokhorst Castle had him paint his six-year-old daughter. Jacoba Maria van Wassenaer, heiress to the estate, sits on a step in the poultry yard giving milk to a lamb, surrounded by hens, doves, ducks, a turkey, a pheasant and a peacock in a bare tree. Through the gateway behind her stands the castle itself. Two servants look on, one carrying eggs and a jug of milk. Once the painting was sold in the 1760s, the family arms on the stone above the gateway were painted over, probably because a stranger's family portrait was harder to sell. Her name was forgotten. Prince William V bought the canvas in 1769, and the coats of arms only reappeared when it was restored in 1848.