Every Drinker You Know Is in This 1640 Painting

The New York Times suggests spending 10 minutes with a work of art. I gave it 20, and honestly, I could've stayed longer.

Puking at the party is uncool, and puking into the bread basket and next to wine tankards is especially uncool. Still… mad respect to everyone else at the party, none of whom seem to notice or care about the puking man.

A few days ago I wandered into this madcap party at the upstairs Gemäldegalerie at Vienna’s massive Kunsthistorisches Museum. It’s hard to miss—the debauch is nearly 8 feet by 10 feet—and I was immediately drawn to this scene of ribaldry, painted by the Flemish painter Jacob Jordaens around 1640.

There’s a trend afoot, advocated by the New York Times among others, to encourage folks to spend a solid ten minutes with a work of art without disruption—no checking of phones, no listening to podcasts. Just you, lost in your thoughts and the artwork.

And I thought, just ten minutes? Rude! I just got here. But there was a bench nearby, and I spent at least twice that time, essentially inviting myself into the party. And after a few minutes making introductions, I realized why it was so easy to linger: I already knew everyone in the painting, even though it’s four centuries out of date.

For instance, this guy. I swear I saw him in the French Quarter in New Orleans a couple of weeks ago. He’s at nearly every party, and every weekend he shows up at one bar or another.

The painting depicts Twelfth Night festivities on January 6 in a private home somewhere in the Netherlands. It’s called “The Feast of the Bean King” and depicts the tradition of crowning the person who finds a bean hidden in a king cake. The newly anointed then deputizes his friends as his various court followers—you can see the titles on the slips of paper, some worn, some dropped on the floor.

Jordaens was basically the Bob Ross of Twelfth Night scenes—he painted at least six variations of this scene over the years. Others are in the collections of prominent museums like the Hermitage in St. Petersburg.

During the party, the king had just one job—to regularly hoist his glass, proclaim, “The king drinks!,” and then down a healthy slug. Whereupon his loyal subjects would follow suit.

The job of the man above and to the right of the king was to amplify this call—a sort of human public address system. I actually knew this guy in high school—his name was Jim, and he just repeated whatever the cool guys said.

This tradition of appointing a coxswain to set a brisk drinking pace has regrettably not carried over to Mardi Gras traditions in New Orleans, nor has the hidden bean. There, a wee plastic baby in lieu of a legume is hidden in a king cake, and the person who finds it is supposed to bring a cake to the next gathering. That’s more of an obligation than an honor, and it’s the bane of office workers throughout the city. I know of one person who swallowed the baby rather than admit to finding it.

The dude standing immediately above the king—looking as if he’s about to inhale a meat sack or headless herring or something—is reputedly the king’s “taster,” in charge of ensuring the king isn’t poisoned. In high school this was Chester, who ate everything and it was best to wait until held left before bringing out the potato chips and French onion dip.

The queen, to the left of the king, is the one character who seems to have retained her composure and dignity amid all the vice and turpitude. I’m not sure she’s really into the party, but she’s willing to go through the motions for the sake of the crew until she can excuse herself and go hide in the kitchen. You’ve met her. She’s been at every party for the past 400 years.

It seems there’s a whole separate party going on at the other end of the table, with smooching, puking, pipe smoking, high pouring, and declaiming. (The puking drunk has been appointed “doctor,” which holds up.) The woman in the center is the only attendee who looks out of the frame, and she fixes her gaze on those of us looking on. She seems to say, I see you watching us, and I hope you have FOMO. She is the influencer. Others at the party are wondering what happened to her. She used to be more fun, and not always insisting that easels be set up and the meal laboriously painted before anyone starts eating.

It’s not all just unbridled ribaldry. As in later eras, there’s also moralizing as well—yes, go and play your games and drink to excess, but know that the bill will come due. Inscribed in a shadowy cartouche at the top of the scene is a Latin phrase that translates as “Nothing is more like a madman than a drunk.”

And while the dog is clearly enjoying being part of the scene, the cat does not. The cat deeply disapproves of the goings on, and likely disapproves of all humans in general. Yet more evidence that the more things change, the more they stay the same.