The Peasant Wedding

In a barn hung with a makeshift cloth of honor, guests crowd a long table while two men carry in bowls of porridge on an unhinged door, and a bagpiper eyes the food hungrily. The bride sits beneath her paper crown, hands folded, beaming and idle by custom, while the groom is harder to pick out among the company. Bruegel observes peasant life closely but without mockery, finding order and dignity in the feast. The composition draws the eye down the diagonal of the table into the press of figures at the back. It is among the best known of his scenes of country life.