The Harvesters

The Harvesters

The Harvesters

Artist:
Pieter Bruegel the Elder (Netherlandish, Breda (?) ca. 1525–1569 Brussels)
Date:
1565
Medium:
Oil on wood
Dimensions:
Overall, including added strips at top, bottom, and right, 46 7/8 x 63 3/4 in. (119 x 162 cm); original painted surface 45 7/8 x 62 7/8 in. (116.5 x 159.5 cm)
Classification:
Paintings
Credit Line:
Rogers Fund, 1919

This panel belongs to a series, commissioned by the Antwerp merchant Niclaes Jongelinck for his suburban home. The cycle originally included six paintings showing the times of the year. Apart from The Harvesters, which is usually identified as representing July–August, or late summer, four other paintings of the group have survived (now in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, and Lobkowicz Collection, Prague). Bruegel’s series is a watershed in the history of western art. The religious pretext for landscape painting has been suppressed in favor of a new humanism, and the unidealized description of the local scene is based on natural observations.

Provenance

Niclaes Jongelinck, Antwerp (by 1566); [Hane von Wijke, Antwerp, until 1594; sold for fl 1,400 to Antwerp City Council as a gift for Archduke Ernst]; Archduke Ernst, governor of the Netherlands, Brussels (1594–d. 1595; inv., 1595, nos. 7–12, listed as "Sechs Taffell, von 12 Monathenn des Jars von Bruegel"); Emperor Rudolph II, Prague (until d. 1612); Archduke Leopold Wilhelm, governor of the Netherlands, Brussels and Vienna (until d. 1662; inv., 1659, nos. 582–86, "Fünff grosse Stuckh einer Grossen, warin die Zeithen desz Jahrs von Öhlfarb auf Holcz . . . Original vom alten Brögel"); Emperor Leopold I, Vienna (1662–d. 1705); Imperial collection, Vienna (until 1809); comte Antoine-François Andréossy, Vienna and Paris (1809–16; his sale, Pérignon, Paris, March 11, 1816, no. 1, as "Par un maître de l'ancienne École allemande . . . Un paysage du plus grand détail, offrant les travaux de la moisson . . . L. 58 p[ouces]., h. 44 p[ouces]. . . . Avec la date de 1546," for Fr 90.11); Jacques Doucet, Paris (until shortly before 1912; sold to Cels); Paul Jean Cels, Brussels (until 1919; sold to MMA)

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