Music-Making Company on a Terrace

Dirck Hals, Frans Hals’s younger brother, was also a painter. He specialized in elegantly dressed ‘companies’.
In this painting, a group of carefree young people give themselves over to the pleasures of life. On the right of the terrace sits a small group making music. Behind them is a fountain – traditionally a reference to fertility – bearing a statue of Bacchus, the god of wine. On the left three men vie for the attention of a seated beauty. The two little dogs sniffing each other in the foreground make the intentions of the young men abundantly plain. Such ‘companies’ usually have a moral message. They warn against overindulgence and the pursuit of earthly pleasure. Making music is meant here as an idle pastime; the pleasure of music is, after all, fleeting. The servant who stands behind the music-makers adds water to the wine and thus symbolizes moderation. And lastly one of the young men paying court to the woman on the left stands on the box of a backgammon set: a game in which fortunes can change, as they can in love.