In time, Gerard ter Borch's 1654 painting Gallant Conversation came to be called Paternal Admonition less and less often

In time, the 1654 painting Gallant Conversation by Gerard ter Borch, that master of the chronicle of ordinary burghers' lives, came to be called Paternal Admonition less and less often. Perhaps because of the coin in the man's hand. At first the subject was read as a daughter bowing her head before a father who scolds or instructs her, while her mother sits meekly by. But later the canvas was found to show a soldier who has looked in at a brothel and is haggling over a "meeting not for nothing" with a woman of easy virtue, in the presence of her procuress, who sips her wine. And so it turns out that from modest daughter to harlot is but a single step