Allegory of Gluttony and Lust
A man rides a wine barrel and swigs from a jug while swimmers paddle after a floating pie, and in a rose-colored tent at the right a couple gives in to lust - gluttony and lechery staged as broad, earthy comedy. The little scene was never meant to stand alone: it was cut from the bottom of the panel whose upper part is the Ship of Fools, also in this collection, the water running on continuously from one to the other. Both were wings of a lost triptych whose surviving inner panel, Death and the Miser, is in the collection as well. Bosch anatomizes appetite piece by piece.



