Two stylish couples sit amid the greenery at a table set with magnificent silverware. For 17th-century audiences, a garden of love such as this was a warning: don’t be led astray by opulence and lust since these are merely transient pleasures. Scenes like this became popular in the early 17th century, after Esaias van de Velde had introduced them in Haarlem. The ‘merry company’ evolved into a popular genre thanks to Dirck Hals, who painted many such scenes.