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A Woodland Road with Travelers

1607
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 613

Jan, who was born shortly before the death of his famous father, Pieter Bruegel the Elder, advanced the genre of Northern landscape painting beyond his paternal legacy. In this refined, well-preserved panel, the vast depth of the landscape is balanced by an attention to the humanity of the peasant subjects and their humble tasks in the foreground. The juxtaposition of the living and the dead—the lush woods with a fallen, dead tree and the working animals with a horse’s skeleton—reflects the mortality of all living things and their eventual return to the earth.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: A Woodland Road with Travelers
  • Artist: Jan Brueghel the Elder (Netherlandish, Brussels 1568–1625 Antwerp)
  • Date: 1607
  • Medium: Oil on wood
  • Dimensions: 18 1/8 x 32 3/4 in. (46 x 83.2 cm)
  • Classification: Paintings
  • Credit Line: Purchase, Fletcher, Rogers, Pfeiffer, Dodge, Harris Brisbane Dick, and Louis V. Bell Funds, and Joseph Pulitzer Bequest, 1974
  • Object Number: 1974.293
  • Curatorial Department: European Paintings

More Artwork

More Artwork
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The Thieves Robbing the Man from The Good Samaritan, Jan Brueghel the Elder Netherlandish, Engraving
The Thieves Robbing the Man from The Good Samaritan
Jan Brueghel the Elder
Assuerus van Londerseel
The Good Samaritan Finds the Man, Jan Brueghel the Elder Netherlandish, Engraving
The Good Samaritan Finds the Man
Jan Brueghel the Elder
Assuerus van Londerseel
n.d.
River Scene, Jan Brueghel the Elder Netherlandish, Pen and brown ink, brown, and red wash, over black chalk; framing lines in brown ink
River Scene
Jan Brueghel the Elder
16th century
Boats and Houses, Jan Brueghel the Elder Netherlandish, Pen and brown ink, brown wash (faded gray); circular framing lines lightly sketched in pen and brown ink
Boats and Houses
Jan Brueghel the Elder
16th century
The Ruins of Castle Merxem, near Antwerp, Jan Brueghel the Elder Netherlandish, Pen and brown ink with pink, blue, gray, and yellow washes
The Ruins of Castle Merxem, near Antwerp
Jan Brueghel the Elder
1610

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