The Debauched Student

In the Dutch Republic of the 1620s, being a student came with privileges. At Leiden, the country's oldest university, founded in 1575, students had their own court and paid no excise on their beer and wine. Writers of the time liked to tell where that freedom could lead, and Honthorst paints the story here. The globe, the hourglass and the stacked books mark the young man as a student, but his desk has become a table for dining and gambling, and he peers at the wine in his jug by candlelight. On the open folio, Pallas Athena, the goddess of wisdom, wrestles with Bacchus and Cupid, and the Latin verse spells out which side he has chosen. In those stories the student squanders his money, is thrown out of the university and only at the very end comes to his senses. Honthorst paints the moment the bill first arrives. From the back, a toothless procuress brings in a baby, and the museum points out that the child has the student's nose.