Hy soect de byle (He is looking for the hatchet)

This characteristically Flemish composition would seem to record one of the first known examples of a 'proverb painting' - a work of moralizing subject matter, the import of which would have been instantly recognizable to contemporaries. Thought to be based on an invention by Hieronymus Bosch, whose prototype is lost, the composition is known through only one other example; a larger work on canvas (112.7 x 132.2 cm.) in the Het Zotte Kunstkabinet, Mechelen. The scene illustrates the proverb 'hy soect de byle', which literally translates as 'he is looking for the hatchet' and is roughly equivalent to the English 'he's looking for trouble'. A rowdy drunk waves his tankard in the air as he is carried away from the appropriately named Hatchet tavern: the inn's sign hangs prominently in the center, with a picture of a hatchet and the inscription 'dit is het bilken' ('t Bylken was a common name for taverns in Flanders). The vase with blooming hawthorn adjacent to the sign was a recognizable symbol of a drinking establishment. The female innkeeper grimaces and appears to be unsheathing her sword in anger as she chases the drunkard away: she has been struck in the head by her disruptive customer and is already being attended by a doctor and a lawyer. The bagpipes carried by the drunkard are an established attribute of sexual feeling, and perhaps he was caught trying to seduce the landlady; he has clearly 'fallen through the basket', another Dutch proverb, describing someone who has shown his true colors.