The one odd detail of the painting is the blazon that appears in the lower half in the center. It is cut off at the bottom of the painting, so we are unable to see the whole thing, but we can tell that it is shaped like a diamond and black with red and yellow tracings on the inside. This gives it almost an occult-like appearance. According to Krajewski, the blazon hanging from the window displays an emblem of a particular rederijker group. The emblem [not visible in this image of the painting] consists of crossed pipes and a wineglass, which are underneath an inscription that reads, "the green laurel shoot." The emblem tells us that the rederijkers were "as much social as literary." The rhetoricians played a major role in entertaining the populace of Holland in the 1600s. This is one of many paintings Steen produced in homage to them. It is also likely that Steen was a good friend with many rhetoricians, as they often worked closely with artists, who would provide the backdrops for their dramatic performances. The painting is warm, open, and friendly in tone; while the one figure in the lower right has a stern expression on his face, it is still somehow blackly comic. There is nothing perverse or morbid...

The painter is clearly fond of the rhetoricians he pays homage to, even if he finds them to be mildly ridiculous in a certain way - which, as popular entertainers, they probably were.
It is unlikely that this painting was done as a commission for any of the men in the picture, as it does not have any of the attributes of a portrait. It is rather a street scene, and is executed in such a manner that one is led to conclude that it was likely done for the artist's own enjoyment, rather than for the benefit of a patron.

Jan Steen was a painter of every day life, and Rhetoricians at a Window gives us some insight into what a typical street scene might have looked in the Netherlands in the 1600s. But far from being merely a skillful documentary rendering of a social subject, Rhetoricians at a Window is also an accomplished work of art, in that all the formal elements come together - culminating in the bizarre rectangular blazon hanging from the window - in a way that perfectly harmonizes with the subject of the painting.

Works Cited

Krajewski, Bruce. Traveling with Hermes: Hermeneutics and Rhetoric. Boston: University of Massachusetts Press, 1992.