Daily life was Jan Steen's main pictorial theme. Many of the genre scenes he portrayed, as in "The Feast of Saint Nicholas", are lively to the point of chaos and lustfulness, even so much that "a Jan Steen household", meaning a messy scene, became a Dutch proverb ("een huishouden van Jan Steen"). Subtle hints in his paintings seem to suggest that Steen meant to warn the viewer rather than invite him to copy this behaviour. Many of Steen's paintings bear references to old Dutch proverbs or literature. He often used members of his family as models, and painted quite a few self-portraits in which he showed no tendency of vanity.