(on the left)
(on the right)
The Tour de Brueghel
This page documents my quest to see all the extant paintings by Pieter Brueghel the Elder (not to be confused with his relatives, Jan Brueghel, Pieter the Younger, et al.). There are 40 paintings left that are commonly believed to have been painted by him. As of November 2004, I have seen 28 of them. I still have a lot of work ahead of me, though, because the 28 paintings I have seen are in 11 museums--and the 12 I have left are in 10 more.
Why Brueghel? Because he is a delightful painter whose works have been mostly lost; this makes it both important to see the ones that are left and not too daunting to attempt. Furthermore, many of his paintings are filled with delightful (or terrifying) detail that can only be appreciated from close up.
Why are the paintings in the places they are? Most are either in territories once controlled by the Hapsburgs (as Belgium was in Brueghel's day) or in collections of postwar American industrialists (because Americans were the first to appreciate and collect the art of this period).
Within each section of the list below, the paintings are listed in the order they are thought to have been painted.
| PAINTINGS I'VE SEEN | ||
| The Blind Leading the Blind (on the left)
|
Naples,
Museo di
Capodimonte; November 2004 |
|
| The Misanthrope (on the right) |
||
| Naval Battle in the Port of Naples
|
Rome,
Galleria Doria
Pamphilj; November 2004 |
They unkindly refused to let me take a picture, ostensibly for
copyright reasons, although I can't imagine there's much of a market for images of this painting mostly obscured by my head. Oh well--here's what it looks like.
|
|
The
Triumph of Death
|
Madrid, Prado; January 2002 |
|
| The Adoration of the Magi | Brussels, Musées royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique; 1997 | |
| The Fall of Icarus | Brussels, Musées royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique; 1997 | |
| The Battle of Carnival and Lent | Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum; 1998 | |
| Children's Games | Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum; 1998 | |
| Dulle Griet | Antwerp, Museum Mayer van den Bergh; 1989 and 1997 | |
| The Suicide of Saul | Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum; 1998 | |
| The Fall of the Rebel Angels | Brussels, Musées royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique; 1997 | |
| The Tower of Babel | Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum; 1998 | |
| Christ Carrying the Cross | Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum; 1998 | |
| The Return of the Herd | Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum; 1998 | |
| The Harvest | New York, Metropolitan Museum; countless occasions | |
| Hunters in the Snow | Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum; 1998 | |
| The Gloomy Day | Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum; 1998 | |
| Winter Landscape with Skaters and Bird Trap | Brussels, Musées royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique; 1997 | |
| The Census at Bethlehem | Brussels, Musées royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique; 1997 | |
| The Massacre of the Innocents | London, Hampton Court Palace; 2000 | |
| John the Baptist Preaching | Budapest, Szepmuveszeti Muzeum; 1998 | |
| The Conversion of St. Paul | Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum; 1998 | |
| The Land of Cockaigne | Munich, Alte Pinakothek; 1993 and 1998 | |
| The Beggars | Louvre, Paris; 1989, 1997, and 2001 | |
| The Bird-Nester | Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum; 1998 | |
| Head of an Old Peasant Woman | Munich, Alte Pinakothek; 1993 and 1998 | |
| The Wedding Feast | Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum; 1998 | |
| The Wedding Dance | Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum; 1998 | |
| PAINTINGS IN CITIES I'VE BEEN TO BUT WHICH I'M PRETTY SURE I DIDN'T SEE | ||
| Flemish Proverbs | Berlin, Staatliche Museen, Gemäldegalerie; 1994? | |
| Two Monkeys | Berlin, Staatliche Museen, Gemäldegalerie; 1994? | |
| The Adoration of the Magi | London, National Gallery; 1989 and/or 2000? | |
| PAINTINGS I HAVEN'T YET SEEN | ||
| Landscape with the Parable of the Sower | San Diego, Timken Art Gallery | |
| The Flight into Egypt | London, Cortauld Institute of Art | |
| Christ and the Woman Taken in Adultery | London, Cortauld Institute of Art | |
| The Death of the Virgin | England, Banbury, Upton House | |
| Haymaking | Prague, Narodni Galerie | |
| The Wedding Dance | Detroit, Institute of Arts | |
| The Adoration of the Magi in the Snow | Winterthur (Switzerland), Oskar Reinhart collection | |
| The Magpie on the Gallows | Darmstadt, Hessisches Landesmuseum | |
| The Tower of Babel | Rotterdam, Museum Boijmans van Beuningen | |
Thanks to Chris's parents for providing a lovely coffee-table book that made this page much easier to assemble!