Art Traveling
Pieter Bruegel the Elder / The Wedding Dance
Wikimedia Commons

The Wedding Dance

1566 · Oil on panel

Dozens of peasants dance at an open-air wedding feast, the bride in black at the back, in a lively scene full of movement.

ArtistPPieter Bruegel the Elder
MuseumDDetroit Institute of Arts
MovementNNorthern Renaissance
LocationDetroit, United States
Genregenre art
Dimensions119.4 × 157.5 cm
SourceWikidata Q3702434

Why it matters

Wedding guests dance, flirt and drink in a crowded village clearing. The painting can be read both as a critique and as a comic portrayal of an overindulgent peasant class.

Did you know?

  • It was painted in 1566.
  • It shows 125 wedding guests.
  • The director of the Detroit Institute of Arts discovered it at a London sale in 1930 and paid $35,075.
  • It forms a trilogy with The Peasant Wedding and The Peasant Dance.

Based on the Wikipedia article The Wedding Dance (CC BY-SA 4.0).

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