Peasants Dancing outside a Bohemian Inn

Outside an inn, the festivities are in full swing. People are eating, drinking, dancing and smooching. There are revellers wherever you look: in the shade in the bottom left-hand corner, inside the inn, stretching far into the distance. The Flemish painter Roelant Savery painted these village festivities with a refined technique and in striking, vivid colours. Bursts of red clothing appear throughout the jubilant crowd.

Savery was following the example of his fellow countryman Pieter Brueghel the Elder with this depiction, yet the inn and landscape do not look particularly Flemish. Indeed, Savery produced this work during his time as court painter to Emperor Rudolf II in Prague. Van Dedem’s painting is an important addition to the collection of genre pieces in the Mauritshuis.