The two children here are in fancy dress and are depicted in a garden. They are positioned behind a stone parapet over which a carpet has been placed. A classical urn decorated with putti is in the background. The child on the left holds a cat and that on the right indicates a guinea pig. Although cats are an attribute of childhood, since both exhibit similar patterns of behaviour, here it is the interaction between the cat and the guinea pig that is important. The boy on the right holds a watch, the cord of which is being bitten by the guinea pig. It is this that perhaps attracts the cat’s attention, quite apart from its natural instinct to attack the guinea pig. Possibly there is a symbolic meaning in what at first sight appears to be a scene of two children playing with their domestic pets, and that meaning might have amorous connotations for the viewer when removed from the context of innocence. Children as the subject of paintings is a theme essayed by Frans Hals and the painters he influenced, but it was Van der Werff who painted them with their pets.

Signed and dated on the parapet (now indistinctly): 'A.V. WERFF fe. 1681'

Catalogue entry adapted from Enchanting the Eye: Dutch paintings of the Golden Age, London, 2004