Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Legacies of Early European Art In Australian Collections
- 2 Heaven and Earth: the Worlds of the Rothschild Prayer Book
- 3 The Rothschild Prayer Book As Political, Social and Economic Agent Through the Ages
- 4 ‘Women Who Read Are Dangerous’: Illuminated Manuscripts and Female Book Collections In the Early Renaissance
- 5 Medieval Parchment: Two Glossed Bible Books In Context
- 6 Beginnings and Endings: the Shaping of the Book of Hours
- 7 An Associate of the Jouvenel Master and the Breviary of Prior François Robert
- 8 Chrysalis to Butterfly: An Aspect of the Evolution of the Book of Hours From Manuscript to Print
- 9 The Sorbonne Press and the Chancellor’s Manuscript
- 10 Thielman Kerver’s Book of Hours of 10 September 1522 In The Kerry Stokes Collection
- 11 An Accessory of Intellect: A Renaissance Writing Casket From The Kerry Stokes Collection
- 12 ‘A Very Rich Adornment’: A Discussion of the Stokes Cassone
- 13 The Dormition of the Virgin Altarpiece From the Kerry Stokes Collection
- 14 Through the Son: Pieter Brueghel the Younger’s Crucifixion
- 15 The Kerry Stokes Schembart Book: Festivity, Fashion and Family In The Late Medieval Nuremberg Carnival
- Index
14 - Through the Son: Pieter Brueghel the Younger’s Crucifixion
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2021
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Legacies of Early European Art In Australian Collections
- 2 Heaven and Earth: the Worlds of the Rothschild Prayer Book
- 3 The Rothschild Prayer Book As Political, Social and Economic Agent Through the Ages
- 4 ‘Women Who Read Are Dangerous’: Illuminated Manuscripts and Female Book Collections In the Early Renaissance
- 5 Medieval Parchment: Two Glossed Bible Books In Context
- 6 Beginnings and Endings: the Shaping of the Book of Hours
- 7 An Associate of the Jouvenel Master and the Breviary of Prior François Robert
- 8 Chrysalis to Butterfly: An Aspect of the Evolution of the Book of Hours From Manuscript to Print
- 9 The Sorbonne Press and the Chancellor’s Manuscript
- 10 Thielman Kerver’s Book of Hours of 10 September 1522 In The Kerry Stokes Collection
- 11 An Accessory of Intellect: A Renaissance Writing Casket From The Kerry Stokes Collection
- 12 ‘A Very Rich Adornment’: A Discussion of the Stokes Cassone
- 13 The Dormition of the Virgin Altarpiece From the Kerry Stokes Collection
- 14 Through the Son: Pieter Brueghel the Younger’s Crucifixion
- 15 The Kerry Stokes Schembart Book: Festivity, Fashion and Family In The Late Medieval Nuremberg Carnival
- Index
Summary
Abstract
Not only is the large Crucifixion panel (1615) in the Kerry Stokes Collection signed by Pieter Brueghel the Younger, the finest version of that essential subject by its prolific painter, but it also provides the most reliable version of a presumed lost Crucifixion composition by his celebrated father Pieter Bruegel the Elder. The crowded composition shows vignettes of holy figures, tormentors, and ordinary onlookers, many of them in contemporary dress, characteristic of the Bruegel family heritage, all presented before a mountaintop setting of Golgotha and above the circular Temple of Jerusalem. The original painting likely stemmed from shortly after 1560, and it accords well with other Bruegel Calvary subjects by both father and son.
Keywords: Pieter Brueghel, Bruegel, Calvary, Crucifixion
Pieter Bruegel the Elder (c.1520/1525–1569) remains a most familiar and beloved painter, renowned for his images of peasant leisure and labour. But he also produced significant works of religious art, some of which surely disappeared in the iconoclastic cleansing of churches that began late in his life, first arising in August of 1566. How exciting, then, to rediscover a major religious work by Bruegel, a Crucifixion, carefully replicated in multiple copies by his painter son Pieter the Younger (1564–1637/1638), who frequently made use of both his father's designs and finished paintings throughout his productive career. As we shall see, echoes of the same lost work were adapted for the same subject by Bruegel's other painter son, Jan Brueghel (1568–1625). But the best version of this missing masterpiece can be found in the Kerry Stokes Collection, Perth.
Pieter Bruegel the Elder not only left a lasting artistic legacy in his forms and favorite themes, but also in the achievements of his two painter sons, Pieter the Younger (1564–1637/1638) and Jan Brueghel (1568– 1625). Jan was celebrated as one of the most distinguished and well-rewarded painters of the early seventeenth century. He served as a court painter for the archdukes in Brussels and produced some of the most expensive paintings of the day, including sumptuous still life flower bouquets as well as finely wrought miniature landscapes, often crowded with tiny figures.
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- Information
- Antipodean Early ModernEuropean Art in Australian Collections, c. 1200–1600, pp. 251 - 268Publisher: Amsterdam University PressPrint publication year: 2018