Jan Miense Molenaer, The Five Senses: Sight, 1637. Oil on panel, 19.7 x 23.9 cm. Mauritshuis, Netherlands.

​​​​​Jan Miense Molenaer, The Five Senses: Hearing, 1637. Oil on panel, 19.3 x 24.3 cm. Mauritshuis, Netherlands.

Jan Miense Molenaer, The Five Senses: Smell, 1637. Oil on panel, 19.5 x 24.3 cm. Mauritshuis, Netherlands.

Jan Miense Molenaer, The Five Senses: Taste, 1637. Oil on panel, 19.6 x 24.3 cm. Mauritshuis, Netherlands.

Jan Miense Molenaer, The Five Senses: Touching, 1637. Oil on panel, 19.6 x 24.4 cm. Mauritshuis, Netherlands.

Jan Miense Molenaer portrayed the five senses with lots of humour. He depicted sight as two people trying to peer inside a jug by the dim light of an oil lamp. Slurring drunkards represent hearing, and smell is shown as a child’s pooey bottom. Molenaer represented taste with a beer jug and pipe, and touch as a good beating.

Molenaer mainly painted portraits and genre pieces that his sophisticated buyers would be able to identify with. But for the five senses he chose to depict the uncouth behaviour of peasant folk. Urban collectors would have found this particularly entertaining.