It is my pencil study of a self-portrait by Jan Steen, which he included smack in the middle of his 1662 painting "Twelfth-Night Feast." I started making small drawings from this painting some months ago at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Do look it up on the MFA's website. The details of hands, poses, and facial expressions in the painting are really well done, and a lot of fun to boot; this and other Dutch paintings helped me hone my illustrations for "A Christmas Carol."
The painting is intricate, skilled, but down-to-earth. Obviously a high-end work of art, it's nevertheless decidedly full of low-brow elements, from the egg shells casually tossed on the floor, to the jester in all his crassness, to the undoubtedly drunk carolers at the door in the background. Gotta love it.
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