Boors playing la main chaude in a tavern

The artist treated the subject at least five other times, of which the version that was offered at Sotheby's London, 11 December 1985, lot 190, ill., comes the closest to the present lot. As pointed out by E. de Jongh, Tot lering en vermaak, exhibition catalogue, Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, 1976, pp.159/61, La main chaude (Handjeklap) was a popular subject in the Netherlands in the seventeenth century; it was also treated by Molenaer's contemporaries Gerrit Lundens and Cornelis de Man and by Flemish artists such as Christoffel van der Lamen. Its moral connotation is made clear by the emblemata of Johan de Brune, published in 1624, who inscribed the theme with the motto: Een hoeren schoot is duyvels boot (E. de Jongh, op. cit., p.160, fig.37c).