The Five Senses (pair of paintings) meal; a lutenist is playing and children singing, epitomising hearing, while one young woman strokes a mink in her arms, representing touch, and another is about to eat oysters, representing taste. Details such as the clavichord and other musical instruments on the left relate to hearing, and a monkey is pulling the hair of a Cupid, a form of touch. The room and the hall visible in the right rear display pictures which are also related to the three senses: "The Annunciation" and "Minerva's Visit to Parnassus" (hearing), "The Dentist" (touch), and "The Punishment of Rich Epulon" and "The Wedding
The Five Senses (series) The Five Senses (series) The Five Senses is a set of allegorical paintings created at Antwerp in 1617–18 by Jan Brueghel the Elder and Peter Paul Rubens, with Brueghel being responsible for the settings and Rubens for the figures. They are now in the Prado Museum in Madrid. They are all painted in oils on wood panel, approximately in dimensions. The series constitutes one of the best known and most successful collaborations by Brueghel and Rubens, who were close friends. The allegorical representation of the five senses as female figures had begun in the previous century, the earliest known examples