The present lot is a copy of a painting housed in the Palais des Beaux-Arts de Lille attributed to a follower of Hieronymous Bosch (Dutch, c. 1450-1516). Presumed to be based on a preparatory ink drawing by Bosch titled Singers in an Egg (in the collection of Kupterstichkabinett Berlin), the painting's original attribution to Bosch himself was debunked through a pictorial analysis of the music depicted in the painting, which is a composition by Franco-Flemish composer Thomas Crecquillon that dates to 1549.

The scene recalls thematic elements of The Ship of Fools, a German text written by Sebastian Brant in 1494 about the voyage of a group of dysfunctional characters, each representing a different form of madness. Bosch repeatedly incorporated this trope in his art, such as in his painting of the same title in the collection of the Musée du Louvre, Paris.

Another copies can be seen at Drouot in Paris and at a private collection in Basel,