[1] This painting depicts a meeting of the Babin Republic, a literary society founded in the sixteenth-century Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth which left a long-lasting impression on Polish culture.

The society's structure satirised that of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, with the founders assigning titles to members based on their boastful, humorous stories rather than merit or actual achievements.

Thus the Babin Republic came to appoint their military commanders (hetman), archbishops, clerks, government officials, senators and Masters of the Hunt.

[1] The motif of play and banqueting in a serene natural environment derives from the literary genre of the pastoral, which was widely popular in Renaissance Europe.

[9] Poland had its own share of pastoral writers, most notably including the aforementioned member of the Babin Republic – Jan Kochanowski.