The Battle between Carnival and Lent from 1559, now in the mu­se­um in Vienna, is one of Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s earliest dated and signed paint­ings, and at the same time one of his most enigmatic. The theme is nevertheless self-evident. Staged on an upward-tilted ground plane with a high horizon, it depicts a grotesquely comic tournament between a Bacchic Shrovetide on the left and a Quixotic Lent on the right.