Painting (detail), 'The village dance' or 'Lowland wedding'

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This is a detail from an oil painting, known as 'Village Dance' or 'Lowland Wedding', attributed to Dutch painter Emanuel De Witte (1617-92). It shows music and dancing at a celebration, probably a wedding, in a rural community.

The detail, from the left of the painting, contains in the foreground an elevated piper and a figure lying vomiting. In the background there is a man on horseback riding off with a woman - possibly the minister with another man's wife.

This type of painting was part of a European fashion for illustrating and sometimes parodying rural life. It gives a rare glimpse of those who served, and were dependent on, the nobility and landowners in 17th-century Scotland.

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• Online ID: 000-190-000-845-C
• Image Rights Holder: National Museums Scotland
• Project: National Museums Scotland
  Project description   View all records in project
• Ref: National Museums Scotland  H.OD 6
• Date: 17th century
  
• Material: Oil on canvas
  Painting, oil
  
• Dimensions: 1130 mm H x 1510 mm L
  
• What: Painting, oil
  
• Subject:
• Who: De Witt
  
• Where:
• Event:
• Description: Oil painting of The Village Dance or Penny Wedding, after de Witt
  
• References:
• Translations:
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