Pieter Aertsen: The Egg Dance (1552); Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

The reason for posting this festive painting is not only the carnival starting this weekend, but also a small, but fine exhibition in the Rijksmuseum, devoted the artist Pieter Aertsen (1508/1509 -1575). The exhibition, ‘Pieter Aertsen and the world turned on his head’, is meant as an honorable farewell to Wouter Kloek, curator of the Rijksmuseum since 1973. For more information on Aertsen, I refer to my earlier Facebook-posting on him on november 12th, 2009.
Egg dancing was a popular game during springtime festivities. The rules are a little too complicated to explain here,but the main goal was not to break the egg. The Egg Dance (1552) is packed with
suggestive symbols like the bagpipes (a well-known representation of the male genitalia), the onions in the window (a supposed Aphrodisiac) and the eggs on the floor (idem). The whole scene seems to take place in a brothel. Most likely, the painting was meant to teach the viewer certain moral lessons, but what strikes us, 21th century spectators, the most is the craftsmanship and flair whith which Aertsen depicted the whole scene.