Self-Portrait with Family Members

Around 1635 the young Haarlem painter Jan Miense Molenaer painted his own family as a musical party. On the left his eldest sister Geertruijt plays the zither. His brothers Bartholomeus and Adriaen play violin and lute, his sister Maria sings and beats time, and Anthonij plays the cello. Two half-brothers, sons of their father's earlier marriage, stand behind the harpsichord, and Jan himself is the man standing at the right. Their father and mother are present too, but only as the large portraits hanging on the wall behind. Making music together was a familiar sign of a household in harmony, and next to it Molenaer set a warning. On the right little Nicolaes blows soap bubbles, an old image of how quickly life passes, with the youngest, Lucia, close by. Mixing pleasure with a reminder like this was a habit of the merry companies painted in Haarlem from early in the century.