Paintings from the Northern Renaissance differed greatly from the Italian Renaissance. Religious and classical mythological paintings were predominant in the Italian Renaissance while the Northern Renaissance, with closer ties to the Calvinism of the Protestant Reformation and its rebuke of religious paintings, embraced genre paintings with scenes of everyday life, often portraying imagery of moral standards and proverbs. This unsigned painting, from the mid to late 17th century, is reminiscent of scenes by Jan Steen (1626-1679) and is fairly typical for the time. Genre scenes became popular for several reasons, one of which was to illustrate popular proverbs and sayings, which exemplified the moral codes of the day. These proverbs would be well known to 17th century viewers, and it’s likely that if your painting illustrates a saying, it would have been recognizable to a contemporary audience. The way the man holds the cat, and the woman with the baby holds her hand up to her ear, make it seem likely that it would be illustrating a proverb. Jan Steen depicted many proverbs that were meant to remind viewers to lead a moral life, but often with these paintings (and particularly with Steen) they were somewhat tongue-in-cheek. They often showed what would happen if the wife or maid neglected her womanly duties – food is eaten by pets, children scream, adults are drunk and there’s usually some sort of sexual innuendo as well. In this painting, the man picks the cat up by the scruff of its neck as it hisses; the baby is about to slide off her mother’s lap as it reaches for the pot on the table (and the mother is not paying attention). Cats were often stood as a metaphor for something else: as a positive connotation, they could represent sight; as a negative connotation, they were often understood as symbols of either seduction or laziness. Here it probably represents laziness – the woman is not paying close enough attention to the household, the man has caught the cat doing something naughty and there are none of the typical sexual references (open, overturned pots, certain vegetables, hunter’s gear, etc.). Information provided by Susan Kantor, Asian Arts Museum, San Francisco. Provenance: Dr. Lawrence Loftus, Carmel, CA; Connoissier Gallery, Carmel-by-the-Sea, CA, c. 1660 -1680. 29.25 x 24.5 inches