My essay on this work is posted under ESSAYS BY PERIOD (scroll down to 16th Northern). My essay discusses the intersection of gender stereotypes (women as greedy, grasping, materialistic, unruly carnal beings) with upper middle-class social stereotypes of a similart nature directed against the "common man". In some works Bruegel extoilled peasants and workers. In other works, he ridiculed them. In still other works, he did both. This work develops the fantastic, imaginary tradition of Bosch, which Bruegel used elsewhere in a number of works, but directs the imagery more closely to social satire, here in a hellish seaport mimicking his hometown of Antwerp, then the largest commercial center of the world.
