Although Jan Steen is a famously funny painter, the only picture in the splendid exhibition of his work at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., that caused me to laugh aloud was the self-portrait of 1670 (Fig. 1). (1) On first viewing it, I did not know the pointed reference to Frans van Mieris's pretentious self-portrait of two or three years earlier, (2) but I immediately recognized that the pose echoed a tradition of gentleman portraits such as Titian's gorgeous picture ...