English

The Harvesters

1565
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 638

This painting originally belonged to a six-part series depicting different times of year that was commissioned by an Antwerp merchant for his country house. This particular scene, usually said to represent the months of July and August, revels in the drowsy heat of harvesttime. Some figures labor in the fields, but others doze, eat, or even skinny-dip (in the far background). While clearly based on Bruegel’s firsthand observation of the cycles of country life, the painting maps realistic detail onto an impossible landscape: it shows a wide-ranging vista from a promontory that could never exist in the lowlands of Bruegel’s native Flanders.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: 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
  • Object Number: 19.164
  • Curatorial Department: European Paintings

Audio

Cover Image for 5179. The Harvesters

5179. The Harvesters

Pieter Bruegel the Elder, 1565

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LINDA CIVITELLO: This is a perfect harvest. The wheat in this painting is as high as the men. This is enormous wheat. It's golden, and it's glorious.

NARRATOR: Under the tree in the foreground, we see a midday meal shared by a group of rural laborers.

LINDA CIVITELLO: Who are smiling and happy and eating and enjoying each other’s company. And what are they eating? They're eating bread.

I’m Linda Civitello and I’m a historian who specializes in food.

Bread was the mainstay then. It's not like now, where you go to a restaurant and they say: "Would you like some bread with that?" In the 1500s it was: "Do we have anything to go with the bread?" But these people are blessed, they do have something to go with the bread.

NARRATOR: The woman with the large triangular hat is cutting a slice from a giant wheel of cheese.

LINDA CIVITELLO: There are also people with bowls of porridge, probably a wheaten porridge. These are not skinny people. These are well-fleshed people.

NARRATOR: The people feel true. The scene feels abundant and alive. And yet, Associate Curator Adam Eaker points out...

ADAM EAKER: It’s important to remember that this is not a real landscape. Bruegel is at the forefront of what we might call the emergence of the secular or the independent landscape. Prior to this point, landscapes had almost always served as backdrops. There would be a religious narrative in the foreground. But here, that pretext has fallen away and instead, Bruegel is observing the rituals, the rhythms of the agricultural calendar, of peasant life in the landscape.

If you were to travel to Flanders today, where Bruegel lived, you’d know it’s a very flat landscape. So he’s created a real fantasy of visibility. But onto that fantastic construction, he’s mapped a lot of very real details from everyday life.

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