Dodici proverbi fiamminghi

These twelve scenes began as separate wooden discs, the kind of painted roundels set out on a well-off table in Antwerp around 1558 and passed among the guests. Each one shows a single figure acting out a Flemish proverb, ringed in red against black, with a rhyming line written underneath. A man throws his money into the water. Another bangs his head against a brick wall. One holds a fish by the tail and lets it slip away. Sixteenth-century Flanders loved these sayings, and reading them off the table was part of the fun of a good dinner. At some early point the discs were mounted together into the single panel you see now. Bruegel would return to the idea soon after on one crowded canvas packed with more than 100 proverbs at once.