Merry company is the term in art history for a painting, usually from the 17th century, showing a small group of people enjoying themselves, usually seated with drinks, and often music-making. These scenes are a very common type of genre painting of the Dutch Golden Age and Flemish Baroque; it is estimated that nearly two thirds of Dutch genre scenes show people drinking.
Willem Pietersz. Buytewech, Merry Company, c. 1620, apart from the maid an all-male group
Dirck Hals, Merry Company at Table, 1627–29
Prostitution is clearly indicated in this scene by Gerard van Honthorst of 1623, complete with aged procuress, low cleavage, and a feathered headdress on the second girl.
Abraham van den Hecken, A Merry Company in a Tavern, 1640s
Genre painting, a form of genre art, depicts aspects of everyday life by portraying ordinary people engaged in common activities. One common definition of a genre scene is that it shows figures to whom no identity can be attached either individually or collectively, thus distinguishing it from history paintings and portraits. A work would often be considered as a genre work even if it could be shown that the artist had used a known person—a member of his family, say—as a model. In this case it would depend on whether the work was likely to have been intended by the artist to be perceived as a portrait—sometimes a subjective question. The depictions can be realistic, imagined, or romanticized by the artist. Because of their familiar and frequently sentimental subject matter, genre paintings have often proven popular with the bourgeoisie, or middle class.
Lady Writing a Letter with her Maid by Jan Vermeer 1670/71)
Peasant Dance by Pieter Brueghel the Elder, c. 1568
Antonio Rotta, Il caso senza speranza, 1871
The Happy Family by Jan Steen, 1668