Peasants and Proverbs

This catalogue accompanies an exhibtion at the Barber Institute of Fine Arts that willshine the spotlight on Pieter Brueghel the Younger (1564 – 1638), an artist who washugely successful in his lifetime but whose later reputation has been overshadowed bythat of his famous father, Pieter Bruegel the Elder (c.1525 – 1569).Peasants and Proverbs: Pieter Brueghel the Younger as Moralist and Entrepreneur sharesrecent research into the Barber’s comical yet enigmatic little painting, Two PeasantsBinding Firewood, setting out fresh insights and offering a new appreciation of a figurewhose prodigious output and business skills firmly established and popularised thedistinctive ‘Brueghelian’ look of Netherlandish peasant life.Born in Brussels, Pieter Brueghel the Younger was just five years old when hisalready renowned father died prematurely. Clearly talented, by the time he was around20 years old, Brueghel the Younger was already registered as a master in Antwerp’sGuild of Saint Luke. Between 1588, the year of his marriage, and 1626, he took on nineapprentices, demonstrating that he had established a successful studio. His workshopproduced an abundance of paintings, ranging from exact copies of famous compositionsby his father, to pastiches and more inventive compositions that further promoted thedistinctive Bruegelian ‘family style’, usually focused on scenes of peasant life. He was, asa consequence, later deemed a second-rate painter, capable of only producing derivativeworks.This exhibition and book highlight how a more sophisticated understanding isnow emerging of a creative and capable artist, and a savvy entrepreneur, who exploitedfavourable market conditions from his base in cosmopolitan Antwerp. From this deeperunderstanding of his practice, his favoured subjects and the market for them, we gaina more profound and compelling insight into the society in which he operated and itspreoccupations and passions.A dozen other versions of Two Peasants Binding Firewood exist and, by examiningsome of them alongside the Barber painting, and using the insights gleaned from recentconservation work and technical analysis, the exhibition and book will explore howBrueghel the Younger operated his studio to produce and reproduce paintings, and theextent to which the entire enterprise was motivated by trends in the contemporary artmarket.