The Bagpipe Player

Pieter Bruegel the Elder

National Gallery of Art

Drawn with delicate lines in brown ink on vertically oriented, dark tan-colored paper, a man playing a bagpipe sits in a stool, which he tips to one side. The man has a round face with oversized, puffed cheeks. His eyes are squinted shut, and his features are pressed into the middle of his face. He has wispy, chin-length hair and wears a shallow, floppy cap. He blows hard into the mouthpiece of the bagpipe, which he holds between both arms as he fingers the recorder-like chanter. The man wears a baggy-sleeved jacket over tight-fitting pants and slippers. His knees are splayed wide, and a prominent codpiece is framed by the jacket’s quarters, the short front flaps. The three-legged stool has a triangular seat. The man tips the stool up on two legs, angled to our left. The paper is darkened in some areas and chipped around the edges. The artist signed the drawing near the lower left corner, “P. Bréugel f.”