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The early 16th century witnessed the appearance of the architectural caprice, a new pictorial genre devoted to the fantastic representation of buildings and cities that resorted to the laws of perspective to create a world that was at once rational and idealised. Vredeman de Vries would in fact become one of the masters of such representations. The pronounced perspective of the building on the left of this composition introduces the viewer into a palatial architecture that evokes certain classical constructions in northern Italy. The sturdy marble columns organise the space and guide the gaze towards the gardens and pergolas that lead to the vanishing point in the background. In this sophisticated atmosphere several figures and couples of courtiers, rendered perhaps by another painter, succumb to music and to gallant attitudes.
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