Connoisseurs have learned to differentiate Brueghel’s ‘Elder’ painters from the ‘Younger’ generation and many have their preferences for the work of the family descendant Pieter Breugel the Elder. But this fall, art lovers are invited to enjoy all the members of this Old Master dynasty as they come together for a new survey spanning five incredible generations at Het Noordbrabants museum in the Netherlands.
Covering roughly the years 1550-1700, some 80 paintings will trace how a family of out-of-the-ordinary artistic talents managed to continue to innovate throughout the Dutch Golden Age. The exhibition will explore intergenerational family ties and influences while expanding on the wider web of cultural activity, from important artists like David Teniers the Younger who married into the family to the wider historical context of colonialism and commerce global.
Jan Bruegel the Elder, Vase of flowers with jewel, coins and shells (1606). Photo courtesy of Pinacoteca Ambrosiana, Milan.
Notable masterpieces by Pieter Bruegel the Elder include Magpie on the gallows (1568), his Beggars of the same year which travels from the Louvre to Paris and a rare public glimpse of The drunk pushed into the pigsty (1557) from a private collection in New York.
In other cases, an in-depth study of detailed miniatures on an intimate scale will introduce visitors to the tiny worlds built by Jan Brueghel the Elder and his grandson Jan van Kessel the Elder, whom he greatly inspired.
Audiences can also expect to be introduced to less famous names, including female family members like artist Mayken Verhulst. Mother-in-law of Pieter Brueghel the Elder, she played an active role in the education of her grandsons Pieter Brueghel the Younger and Jan Brueghel the Elder.
His own practice, too often overshadowed by their achievements, included miniature illustrations and watercolors. She was named one of the four most important female artists of the region in Lodovico Guicciardini’s book Description of the Netherlands (1567).
“Brueghel: the family reunion” opens at Het Noordbrabants Museum from September 30 to January 7, 2024.
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