#61 Young Man and Woman in an Inn — Mug

Hals painted laughter better than anyone of his century, and he did it by working fast and leaving the brushstrokes showing — a technique that looked careless to his contemporaries and modern three hundred years later. The couple are mid-toast and mid-joke, the dog is watching the table, and nothing is tidy. The Dutch called this kind of scene a merry company, and it was understood to be a warning about wasting your money. Nobody in the painting looks warned. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.