"The Fraternity Party Gets Out of Hand"
Triptych ~ detail of right panel, "The Botched Beer Raid."
Pieter Boggle
Boggle was the official painter to Alpha Delta Triskelion fraternity. In that capacity he recorded the unfortunate events of the Freshman Rush Party of October 29, 1559 when, due to an unfortunate scheduling error, ADT house ran out of beer at 8:15 pm.
Faced with certain catastrophe, a suicide squad of ADT alpha males attempted a beer raid on the neighboring Xi Chi house, whose Halloween costume party was in full swing. The carnage was dreadful, with the inhabitants of the rest of fraternity row pouring out into the streets to join in the fray on one side or the other. It took police over 6 hours to quell the disturbance, in the course of which 167 fraternity brothers and 3 police horses were arrested for acute or chronic public intoxication .
The incident left Boggle a broken man, haunted by images that he dreaded to put onto canvas. After finishing this one work he retired to a Trappist fraternity in upstate Flanders.
