The Cuckold Bridegroom

Dutch has a word for a wedding like this one, a moetje, a marriage that has to happen because a baby is on the way. Jan Steen painted one around 1670, and gave it an extra twist. The groom, noticeably older than his bride, is leading her away from the party toward the wedding night. She is holding back, and she is heavily pregnant.

The guests have all worked it out. On the right a young man lifts his hand with two fingers spread, the sign of the horns, telling the whole room that the groom is a cuckold and the child is not his. The Kunsthistorisches Museum calls it a genre scene with a moral lesson, painted with unusual richness, and the whole crowded room is in on the secret.

The picture is first recorded in the imperial gallery in Vienna in 1783, the year a new catalogue appeared after the collection had been rehung in the Belvedere palace.