How you can use this image

This image can be used for non-commercial research or private study purposes, and other UK exceptions to copyright permitted to users based in the United Kingdom under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, as amended and revised. Any other type of use will need to be cleared with the rights holder(s).

Review the copyright credit lines that are located underneath the image, as these indicate who manages the copyright (©) within the artwork, and the photographic rights within the image.

The collection that owns the artwork may have more information on their own website about permitted uses and image licensing options.

Review our guidance pages which explain how you can reuse images, how to credit an image and how to find images in the public domain or with a Creative Commons licence available.

Buy a print or image licence

You can purchase this reproduction

If you have any products in your basket we recommend that you complete your purchase from Art UK before you leave our site to avoid losing your purchases.

Notes

Add or edit a note on this artwork that only you can see. You can find notes again by going to the ‘Notes’ section of your account.

The woman is tip-toeing down the stairs, her forefinger raised to her lips to indicate silence, while she listens to a lovers’ tryst in the room beyond. Identified as the mistress of the house by the weighty keys hanging from her waist, the woman descends the stairs from a small book-lined office, where she has presumably been seeing to the house hold accounts. In contrast, the young maidservant at right is distracted from her childminding duties by her lover’s ardent caress. With her gentle smile and direct outward gaze, the eavesdropper draws the viewer into the narrative and presents a moral choice between industry and idleness, between domestic virtue and sensual abandon. The use of light comedy to stress a moral lesson is common in the artist’s genre paintings, though never so ribald as in works by Jan Steen.

English Heritage, The Wellington Collection, Apsley House

London

Title

The Eavesdropper

Date

1655–1659

Medium

oil on canvas

Measurements

H 57.5 x W 66 cm

Accession number

WM.1503-1948

Acquisition method

management transferred from the Victoria and Albert Museum to English Heritage, 2004

Work type

Painting

Tags

See a tag that’s incorrect or offensive? Challenge it and notify Art UK.

Help improve Art UK. Tag artworks and verify existing tags by joining the Tagger community.

Normally on display at

English Heritage, The Wellington Collection, Apsley House

149 Piccadilly, Hyde Park Corner, London, Greater London W1J 7NT England

This venue is open to the public. Not all artworks are on display. If you want to see a particular artwork, please contact the venue.
View venue