Paintings from the Northern Renaissance differed greatly from the Italian Renaissance. Religious and classical mythological paintings were predominant in the Italian Renaissance while the Northern Renaissance, with closer ties to the Calvinism of the Protestant Reformation and its rebuke of religious paintings, embraced genre paintings with scenes of everyday life, often portraying imagery of moral standards and proverbs. This unsigned painting, from the mid to late 17th century, is reminiscent of scenes by Jan Steen (1626-1679) and is fairly typical for the time. Genre scenes became popular for several reasons, one of which was to illustrate popular proverbs and sayings, which exemplified the moral codes of the day. These proverbs would be well known to 17th century viewers, and itâ