Rijksmuseum
Gallant Company
1633
Two gentlemen enter the room, one holding a partridge, the other a hare. Yet given their spotless, elegant clothing, they cannot have just returned from the hunt.The double meaning of the depiction would have been obvious to 17th-century viewers: the Dutch expressions for ‘hunting hare’ and ‘birding’ could be used vulgarly to mean ‘making love’. The men are thus hunting for love.
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