3-085-151 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

Merry Company, c1620. The young people in this painting emphasise their fashion-consciousness with colourful fabrics and large lace collars. The table in the garden is sumptuously laid, the wine already flowing in abundance. The oysters-known for their aphrodisiacal qualities-have also taken effect. Yet two of the men seem somewhat out of place. The bearded fat fellow in black is the ‘Peeckelharing’, a personification of drunkenness, and the standing man with the old-fashioned red hat is ‘Hansworst’. They are two well-known jester types whose presence mocks the carefree wastefulness of the ‘merry company’.