S.J. Gudlaugsson
THE COMEDIANS IN THE WORK OF JAN STEEN AND HIS CONTEMPO-RARIES.
Translated from the orig. Dutch edition of 1945 and provided with a preface by Prof. Dr. J.G. van Gelder
1975. 70 pp. and 72 for the greater part improved illustrations. The current locations of the paintings have been checked as much as possible.

In this study Gudlaugsson concentrates mainly on a number of characteristic types which peopled Jan Steen's paintings and for which the painter made a choice among the comic personages of the theatre. They are principally personages from comedy, which had their origin in the Italian theatre. But also stage figures, whose stereotype appearance originated in Holland itself, or at least in Northern Europe, but whose recognizable primitive forms are more complicated and less transparent than those of the Italian comedy.