Room 14 — Everyday Life is the jolliest room in the Mauritshuis. It has several works by Jan Steen, famous for his disorderly domestic and unruly inn scenes that often illustrated popular expressions and idioms that were even more popular then than in current Dutch. The large As the Old Sing, So Pipe the Young is a popular Steen motive showing eating, drinking, smoking, and music at a christening party. (It is also a Steen family portrait: Jan Steen holds the pipe while his wife is the model for the woman accepting more wine.)
The large Steen painting is flanked by two smaller ones with similar themes by Adriaen van Ostade — he may have been the inspiration for Jan Steen (and possibly his teacher). Even a rare religious-themed painting by Steen — Moses and Pharaoh’s Crown is turned into a farce — painting on the far right, while The Life of Man is to far left.