Tátrai Vilmos szerk.: A Szépművészeti Múzeum közleményei 90-91.(Budapest, 1999)
NÉMETH, ISTVÁN: Musical Company
of them are wearing stylish clothes obeying the latest fashions, while casually feasting on oysters, drinking wine, making music, and chatting or dallying with each other. The members of this young company are obviously prosperous and carefree. On the left stands a boy outfitted as a page, holding wineglasses on a tray. In front of him on the ground there is a richly worked vessel for cooling wine while behind him, on the "sideboard", awaits an array of ornate dishes in the shadow of a column wrapped in crimson drapery. The choice of subject and the mood of this picture recall works painted on a similar theme by David Vinckboons and Esaias van de Velde in the 1610s, while the theatrical presentation of the figures and their somewhat artifical poses suggest the influence of Willem Buytewech, active in Haarlem for a few years around this time, and from whose genre pictures Dirck Hals at times borrowed motifs without making any changes in them. The intimate gestures of the flirting couples, the musical instruments sounded by the two youths seated on the right, the large platter of oysters on the table and the feathered hat tossed down into the foreground may all be connected to sensuality and a frivolous, debauched lifestyle. 7 Ildikó Ember has mentioned the allegorical works depicting the Five Senses and the Garden of Earthly Delights as iconographie antecedents, adding that in the Budapest painting by Dirck Hals we cannot identify with certainty the embodiments of the individual senses, in spite of the merry company consisting of five couples. 8 On the basis of its motifs the scene could also be considered to be a representation of The Age of Twenty, The Sanguine Temperament or Youth. 9 It is quite conceivable that Dirck Hals had intended to leave open a number of possible interpretations for the viewer. 10 At any rate, in this instance we are not provided with additional "•emblematic" motifs to make interpretation easier, such as the chained monkey in the artist's painting of the identical subject in Amsterdam," or a moralizing commentary such as the one seen in an engraving made by Cornelis Kittensteyn after a painting by Dirck Hals, also showing a group of merrymakers. 12 Regarding its manner and composition the Budapest painting is perhaps closest to a work by the same artist at the Frans Hals Museum in Haarlem, which also depicts merrymakers outdoors, but contains an unequivocal representation of the five senses. 13 Another work by Dirck 7 For the erotic associations related to oysters see: Cheney, L., The oyster in Dutch genre paintings: moral or erotic symbolism, Artibus et Históriáé 15(1987) 135- 158. s Niederländische Malerei des 17. Jahrhunderts aus Budapest, Cologne (Wallraf-Richartz-Museum) Utrecht (Centraa] Museum) 1987, 80. 9 About the various possible interpretations of young couples playing music together in contemporary depictions, see: De Jongh, F.. Kwesties van betekenis, thema en motief in de Nederlandse schilderkunst van de zeventiende eeinv. Leiden 1995, 95-97. 10 About the ambiguities of contemporary Dutch genre pictures and the varieties of possible readings of certain individual motifs, see: Becker, J., "De duystcre sin van dc gcschildcrdc figueren": Zum Doppelsinn in Rätsel, Emblem und Genrestück, in Vekeman, H.-Müller-Hofstede, J. (ed.), Wort und Bild in der niederländischen Kunst und Literatur des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts, Erfstadt 1984, 17 29. 11 About this painting by Dirck Hals, see: De Jongh. E., Tuinfeest: Dirck Hals (1591-1656), Openbaar Kunstbezit 13 (1969) 13; Tot lering en vermaak, Betekinessen van Hollandse genrevoorstellingen uit de zeventiende eeinv, Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum) 1976. 125. 12 In connection with the above-mentioned engraving see: Brown, op. cit. (Note 4) 160 and 177. 13 About the painting in Haarlem sec: Tot lering en vermaak. op. cit. (Note 11) 122 123.
