The wedding feast was a popular theme in 16th- and 17th-century Flemish art. The Peasant Wedding Dance by Pieter Bruegel the Elder (1525/30-1569) is among the earliest and most renowned works. The original painting has been lost, but Bruegel’s initial design endures in an engraving by Pieter van der Heyden (1530-1572), created after 1570. The composition shows a serene bride sitting behind a table of honour. Two matrons hover over her and eagerly assist her in counting the coins placed on a platter that rests on the table. Wedding guests arrive to bring useful household gifts: stools, a broom, jars, a ladle, and a cot. All the while, the bride remains seated. An explanation for her tranquillity is offered in the inscription beneath the engraving, which, incidentally, was not added by Bruegel himself. The final line indicates that the bride is “full and sweet“, meaning she is expecting.
Our bride has given up dancing,
Which, by the way, is for the best, because she’s full and sweet.

Pieter Brueghel the Younger (1564-1638), son of Bruegel the Elder, imitated, modified, and expanded his father’s creations. He created at least thirty-one versions of an outdoor wedding. Bruegel’s second son, Jan Brueghel the Elder (1568-1625), also produced, though to a lesser extent, interpretations of his father’s Peasant Wedding Dance.

A quick comparison between Van der Heyden’s engraving and the paintings by Pieter the Younger and Jan the Elder reveals many similarities. The placid bride, adorned with a marriage crown, sits in front of the cloth of honour, which is embellished with a suspended ring. Also in the background, we see villagers bestowing gifts, kissing, drinking, and socialising. And, most prominently, there are four monumental dancing couples in the foreground. These iconic dancers appear in hundreds of paintings by the Brueghel brothers, their contemporaries, their followers, and their imitators.

While Pieter the Younger always remained close to his father’s original setting, his younger brother Jan the Elder also created a distinctly different wedding setting by merging landscape painting with a genre scene.

The Wedding Banquet revisits the fashionable 16th-century composition style, the bird’s-eye perspective. Jan Brueghel the Elder observes the wedding festivities from a high vantage point. The festivities, roughly composed in a triangular shape, are embedded between spacious grassy fields that lead to endless vistas. The composition is familiar. The placid bride sits at the table, and the guests are drinking, dancing, and making merry. Jan the Elder has made some adjustments. This painting, commissioned by the aristocracy, bypasses more ‘unpleasant’ peasant activities. The villagers may kiss, drink and dance, but Jan Brueghel avoids scatology and licentiousness. The dancers, like all the figures from this elevated viewpoint, are small and not distinctive. They merge into the crowd. On close inspection, one can distinguish six dancing couples. Their movements are reminiscent, though simpler and less forthright than Bruegel the Elder’s dancers. Similar to Bruegel’s original composition, the dancers move side to side, face each other, twirl under an uplifted arm and dance, and hover back to back. Jan Brueghel primarily displays the actions of the upper body, highlighting the arm movements. In contrast to Bruegel the Elder, Jan minimises the emphasis on leg movements and, notably, omits codpieces.

It may surprise you to learn that David Teniers the Younger (1610-1690), the 17th-century Flemish artist celebrated for his innumerable depictions of rural life, painted only a handful of works depicting a country wedding.* The earliest known work, Village Festival and Feast, currently held in the Prado collection, was created in 1637, the same year Teniers married Anna, the daughter of Jan Brueghel the Elder. Rather than following in the steps of his late father-in-law, Teniers revisited the composition and structure employed by Pieter Bruegel the Elder. Similar to Bruegel, Teniers positions the bride in the background, surrounded by family and guests. She sits calmly, her hands crossed on the table. Two older women, as in previous paintings, sit next to her in a supportive manner. Teniers also positions prominent large figures in the foreground. In the lower right corner, an older man is flirting with a younger woman, illustrating the theme of an unequal couple. The lower left corner is reserved for an additional erotic depiction. It takes little imagination to grasp the implications suggested by the two men smoking pipes, especially when you notice a couple embracing directly behind them. Amid the two lewd references, four villagers perform an impromptu dance; a hurdy-gurdy player and a bagpiper accompany them. The bagpipes, you will remember, suggest male genitalia. All the more piquant that the bagpiper gazes directly at the intimate couple.

Teniers may include some risqué suggestions, but unlike his predecessors, he does so without a didactic or moral aim. His sense of humour prevails. I love how he portrays the villager carefully counting his coins to determine which ones to put on the bride’s platter. The dancers, likewise, are light-hearted, bouncing to the frolicsome rhythm of the musician. Teniers’ characters have their mischievous moments, yet the overall scene is a delightful wedding celebration where villagers are enjoying themselves.

Village Festival and Feast is Teniers’ first example of a compositional framework that he revisited throughout his career. His village celebrations and weddings typically exhibit a familiar pattern: rustics dancing in an open space, a village plain partially enclosed by a high wooden fence, several trees, jovial peasants gathered around a table, and a glimpse of the picturesque scenery.

There is no fence in Country Celebration, but the row of houses arranged behind the bride fulfils the same structural objective. In this painting, created a decade after Village Festival and Feast, the bride and her guests, seated beneath a canopy of trees, are subtly illuminated. In contrast, the dancers, the dining guests, and a noble gentleman bask in the sunlight. Also, well illuminated is the group of distinguished people in the distance posed regally in front of a tall-spired church.

In Country Celebration, Teniers has exchanged the use of erotic insinuations for a lively depiction of festive peasant life. Several examples—the drunken individual slumped over the beer barrel, the gluttonous swine, and the man relieving himself against the tavern’s wall—still highlight the peasants’ absence of refinement, but Teniers has tempered his satire. It has been suggested that one of the aristocrats portrayed is, in fact, Archduke Leopold Wilhelm of Austria, who served as governor of the Spanish Netherlands on behalf of Philip IV. If he, or one of his party, commissioned this artwork, then Teniers’ restraint makes perfect sense.

In Country Celebration, the dancers take centre stage. Their vibrant costumes and merry faces draw the onlooker into the picture frame. The man nearest to the front waves his cap to draw our attention. He smiles heartily, inviting the onlooker to join in with the festivities. And what about the countryman in the red cap? Surely his roguish expression reinforces our welcome.

Teniers’ dancers are irresistible. A simple leg lift and a flexed foot combined with a gentle backward tilt of the torso are sufficient to suggest the dancers’ bubbling enthusiasm. Their spontaneous dance might lack finesse, but it is definitely energetic. You can almost envision the dancers briskly bouncing from one foot to another.

The composition of Peasant Wedding (below) is familiar. The bride occupies her traditional position. The cloth of honour is suspended, this time embellished with three hanging rings, on the fence. The scene is familiar; the drunk is present, so is the elderly man with the cane, and the party is seated around the tavern table. Only the woman ushering her intoxicated husband home has inexplicably vanished. There is, however, a significant variation; the tree is practically bare. That, to say the least, is highly unusual. Teniers paints magnificent trees, and these are invariably present in his depictions of outdoor activities. Without drawing any conclusions, might the gloomy clouds and leafless tree signify the bride’s destiny?

The dancers appear oblivious to the ominous clouds. They, and the young family, capture the final rays of sunlight. The white aprons and collars of the seated mother and the dancing woman contrast vividly with the deeper earthy tones in the background. Likewise, the red, blue, and yellow hues highlight both the dancers and the family group.

Teniers presents two dancing couples. The couple nearest to the bride appears to dance a type of jig. The rustic grabs his partner tightly with both hands, looks downward, and lifts his crooked leg in the air, reminding me of a jumping jack. His partner, and most of the female dancers in Teniers’ paintings, are less bold. Her lengthy skirt restricts overzealous kicks. She participates in the jumps and the running movements but mostly follows the male lead. The most awesome dancer is the stocky rustic donned in a red shirt and a red-plumed cap. He bounds forward enthusiastically. His protruding belly and captivating grin cannot escape your attention.

From Bruegel the Elder to David Teniers the Younger, the bride has presided over the wedding. Still, there is one question that persists. Where is the bridegroom? This conundrum has baffled historians and art enthusiasts for centuries. Many have attempted to find the answer. The answer is yet to be discovered.

* _{To my knowledge there are five known works depicting a peasant wedding. Three are discussed in this post. The other two are in the collection of The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art (Sarasota, Florida) and in the Museum Kronberger, (Kronberg in Taunus, Germany).}

** _{For further information on Teniers the Younger I suggest David Teniers the Younger: Paintings, Drawings by Margret Klinge. This is the catalogue of an exhibition held at the Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp, 11 May-1 September 1991 —ISBN 10: 9053496165 ISBN 13: 9789053496169 f.p 1991}

*** _{The Peasant Wedding in the collection of the Museum Kronberger is practically identical to The Peasant Wedding housed in the Hermitage Museum. My comments are based on a black-and-white photograph that I found on the internet. The setting is practically identical. The tree, as in the Hermitage version, is leafless. The main difference is that the nursing mother has been placed to the side, and the two dancing couples have been substituted by a round dance. Furthermore, in the Hermitage painting, there are three musicians. In the Kronberger version, only two musicians are present.}