In the middle of a snowy landscape, villagers are busy. We are in Flanders, as indicated by the typically Flemish stepped gable of the house at the bottom. A host of characters is converging on an inn in the foreground. They are coming to pay their taxes, in cash or in kind: chickens, eggs, wheat...
But now a strange group comes forward. A woman dressed in blue and sitting on an ass is accompanied by an ox and a man carrying a saw. These are the Virgin Mary and Joseph the carpenter, the parents of Christ. They have come to register in their hometown, as the law required.
The painter takes the opportunity to locate the scene in a region familiar to him, Flanders, whereas this biblical episode takes place in Bethlehem, today in Palestine. He chooses to place these characters who lived 1600 years before him in a contemporary setting as if the scene had taken place in his own time!
If the date of the event is not specified, the Bible tells us. It's December 24th. Which means that Mary is ready to give birth!
Pieter Brueghel the Younger painted at least thirteen variations on this theme, which he copied from a work by his own father. But that is not as scandalous as it sounds!! In the XVIth century, painters belonging to the same workshop and working together lent and shared their subjects!
Inventory number: P.863
Detail 1:
Have you spotted the cabbage thief? Dressed in a yellow cape and a hat, he is quietly trying to steal from the garden by the river.
Detail 2:
At the bottom right of the composition, children play a primitive version of our hockey, while others slide on a wooden sledge or on sledges improvised from beef jawbones!
In the middle of a snowy landscape, villagers are busy. We are in Flanders, as indicated by the typically Flemish stepped gable of the house at the bottom. A host of characters is converging on an inn in the foreground. They are coming to pay their taxes, in cash or in kind: chickens, eggs, wheat...
But now a strange group comes forward. A woman dressed in blue and sitting on an ass is accompanied by an ox and a man carrying a saw. These are the Virgin Mary and Joseph the carpenter, the parents of Christ. They have come to register in their hometown, as the law required.
The painter takes the opportunity to locate the scene in a region familiar to him, Flanders, whereas this biblical episode takes place in Bethlehem, today in Palestine. He chooses to place these characters who lived 1600 years before him in a contemporary setting as if the scene had taken place in his own time!
If the date of the event is not specified, the Bible tells us. It's December 24th. Which means that Mary is ready to give birth!
Pieter Brueghel the Younger painted at least thirteen variations on this theme, which he copied from a work by his own father. But that is not as scandalous as it sounds!! In the XVIth century, painters belonging to the same workshop and working together lent and shared their subjects!
Inventory number: P.863
Detail 1:
Have you spotted the cabbage thief? Dressed in a yellow cape and a hat, he is quietly trying to steal from the garden by the river.
Detail 2:
At the bottom right of the composition, children play a primitive version of our hockey, while others slide on a wooden sledge or on sledges improvised from beef jawbones!
