THE COVER

Sefton features painter Jan Steen. Steen's prodigious body of work, comprising some 700 to 800 paintings, has been noted for its wide range of styles and subjects, though he demonstrated a particular fondness for depicting proverbs, moral themes, family life and the broodings of unrequited love. Although his range has been attributed to his frequent moves within Holland as well as to his seemingly tireless quest to emulate his peers, it is possible that, perhaps frustrated by his inability to support a growing family through the proceeds from his art, he felt driven to keep innovating. In The Idlers, Steen revisits the vanitas theme--life is short and its pleasures transient; in the end, all is vanity--so popular in contemporary Dutch art, here using accepted symbols to suggest the brevity of life: an unlit lantern on the back wall; a half-burned candle on a high shelf; a flowerless vase, half-full of water, on the sideboard.