At Home with the Ten Commandments: Domestic Text Paintings in Seventeenth-Century Amsterdam

In Jan Steen’s The Prayer before the Meal (c. 1663-65, Duke of Rutland, Belvoir Castle, Grantham), a modest scrap of parchment painted with text and hanging from a nail appears at the upper right of the painting above the hearth (Fig. 1). We could not be faulted for overlooking it, because the main scene of an average family about to settle down to grace first draws our attention and sympathy. But what is this unusual note tacked on high? It consists of a text painted on a rectangle of parchment, approximately eleven inches high and nine inches wide, stretched between two rollers. Steen took great care to make the writing legible, and it translates as: “My Lord desires to give neither overflowing riches nor great poverty on this earth.” ¹ Based on Proverbs 30:8 and known as Solomon’s Prayer, the words provide a reminder of the virtue of moderation in daily life. As if to claim that he took the words to heart, Steen even signed his name directly beneath it. The Prayer before the Meal raises the question of the meaning and function of such text paintings in the life of prosperous burgher families.