The Blind Hurdy-Gurdy Player

There are sixteen published versions of this subject by Brueghel and his contemporary, David Vinckboons (1576-1633) (see Antwerp, exhibition catalogue, op. cit., p. 403). Vinckboons' 1606 painting is actually the prototype upon which subsequent versions by Brueghel the Younger were based.

In the seventeenth century, hurdy-gurdy players were often roving musicians, a step down from their role during the Renaissance as court or cloister musicians. These traveling minstrels were often from the poorest ranks of society - the blind among them - and their presence in towns and villages could become a nuisance. By the middle of the century, traveling musicians needed a license to perform in public. The physical disability of the blind musician came to be associated with 'moral blindness' as well.

While the present composition does not seem to derive from a proverb, there is a moralizing overtone. The connection between moral failing and blindness was addressed more explicitly by Pieter Brueghel the Elder in his composition The Blind Leading the Blind (Naples, Museo Nazionale di Capidimonte) the subject of which derives from the Gospel of Matthew, XV:13-4, '...if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into a ditch.'