Children Teaching a Cat to Dance

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Children Teaching a Cat to Dance, Known as ‘The Dancing Lesson’

Artist	Jan Steen
Year	c.1660–1679
Medium	oil paint, panel
Dimensions	68.5 cm (27.0 in) × 59 cm (23 in)
Location	Rijksmuseum, Netherlands
Owner	Jacobus Salomon Hendrik van de Poll
Accession No.	SK-A-718
Identifiers	RKDimages ID: 6390
[edit on Wikidata]

c. 1660–1679 oil on panel painting by Jan Steen

Children Teaching a Cat to Dance or The Dancing Lesson is an oil-on-panel genre painting by Jan Steen, executed c.1660–1679 and now in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.

The painting depicts a group of children attempting to make a cat dance to the music of a shawm. The cat is screeching and the dog barking but the children are having fun. However, the old man at the window clearly disapproves of their behaviour.

The work is a typical example of Steen's indoor scenes of everyday Dutch life.

Origin

The work comes from the collection of the jonkheer Jacob Salomon Hendrik van de Poll (1837–1880) in Amsterdam. He bequeathed his collection to the Rijksmuseum in 1880.