This painting presents us with an extraordinary compendium of images illustrating roughly 130 old Netherlandish proverbs and folk sayings, many of which are still in current use to this day. The design of this famous composition is derived from an original panel by Pieter Bruegel the Elder (1526–1569) of 1559, today in the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin (fig. 1).¹ Bruegel’s original reflected the widespread contemporary interest in old Netherlandish proverbs awakened in the sixteenth century by works such as Erasmus’s Adagia first published in 1500. A generation later, from 1607 onwards, the composition was popularised by his son Pieter Breughel the Younger (1564–1636) and his Antwerp workshop, probably working from a surviving preparatory drawing by his father.² Some nine autograph versions are known and a number of workshop and contemporary copies.³ This picture, however, differs from them in a number of details. The different under-drawing methods, the use of distemper on a fine linen canvas and the smaller dimensions all indicate that the present painting was not produced in the workshop of Pieter Brueghel the Younger.⁴ Some specific details of the design suggest that its author was familiar with the original painting by the elder Bruegel, and others that he had also had access to a version from the Younger’s workshop, while at least four proverbs here are taken from another source altogether, namely the Twelve Proverbs, a set of engravings made around 1568 by the Antwerp engraver Johannes Wierix (1549–after 1618). The unknown painter, who was probably active in Antwerp in the early seventeenth century, thereby shows a degree of creative and technical independence well removed from the mainstream production of such images.

Although we do not know the whereabouts of Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s original painting of the Proverbs at the t.mes of his death in 1569, it was recorded in Antwerp in 1668, when it was documented in the possession of the collects or Pieter Stevens. It is thus possible that Pieter Brueghel the Younger and others may have had access to it at some point, even if his own copies were derived from a cartoon or drawing. It is possible that the author of the present canvas may also have seen the Elder’s original or at least an accurate copy, as some details included in this painting are not found in or are very different to those in the Younger Brueghel’s copies. These include, for example, the running man upper centre, whose backside is on fire,⁵ the spur of land upper right with the silhouetted figures of the blind leading the blind and the roof of the shed also upper right, which is made here of planks rather than the thatch favoured by the Younger’s studio. Even if this was the case, however, he was equally aware of some of the many miscellaneous changes, additions and omissions made by Brueghel the Younger and his studio to the original design (fig. 2). These included, for example, the musician in the tower in the upper centre, who kneels in the 1559 original, but whose feet now stick out of the window. Infra-red reflectography reveals that in the under-drawing on the original panel Bruegel the Elder had originally drawn the musician’s feet sticking out of the window, but later altered them in the painted version. This suggests that when he came to paint his own versions, Brueghel the Younger had access to a cartoon or drawing of the original design which showed the legs out of the window, but also that the present painter must have seen one of these later amended copies, for he included a detail only visible in Brueghel the Younger’s versions from 1607 onwards.⁶

One of the most interesting aspects of the present canvas is the fact that its author also included some images that do not appear in either the Elder Bruegel’s original panel or his son’s later copies. These are ‘The Blind leading the Blind’ and ‘The Man with a moneybag and his flatterers’ or ‘To crawl into someone’s hole’ (both upper right); ‘The Misanthrope robbed by the world’ (centre); and ‘The Hay chasing the horse’ (upper centre).⁷ As Christine Currie has recently shown in her detailed study of this canvas, these are all derived from a series of circular prints of Twelve Proverbs by the Antwerp engraver Johannes Wierix probably published around 1568 (figs. 3 & 4).⁸ With the exception of ‘The Misanthrope’ these are not based upon other existing works by Bruegel the Elder, but they may reflect lost prototypes. It is also of note that in this canvas, the artist has removed all the original proverbs or sayings with religious connotations. These are ‘He puts a flaxen beard upon our Lord’ (false piety) and ‘To confess to the devil’ (to confide one’s secrets to an enemy) and ‘To light a candle to the devil’ (to give the devil his due), which can be seen in the right foreground and the centre of the Berlin panel. Perhaps this was because either the painter or whoever commissioned the canvas may have been in religious orders, or perhaps simply that these subjects were a little at odds with the more humorous and earthy sayings all around them. It is, of course, precisely the way that these everyday scenes, familiar to all classes and ranks of society, manage to achieve a combination of humorous advice with a wry and telling observation of human nature that has ensured their popularity from Bruegel’s day to this.

¹ Oil on panel, 118 x 161 cm. L. Silver, Pieter Bruegel, New York and London 2011, pp. 215–30, figs 187–94, including an illustrated key to all the proverbs.

² For a detailed study of Brueghel the Younger’s production of this design, see R. Duckwitz, ‘The Devil is in the Detail. Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s Netherlandish Proverbs and copies after it from the workshop of Pieter Brueghel the Younger’, in P. van den Brink (ed.), Brueghel Enterprises, exh. cat. Maastricht, Bonnefanten Museum, 2001–02, pp. 59–79.

³ In his catalogue of Brueghel the Younger’s works, Ertz lists nine autograph versions of the Proverbs by his hand, two of which are smaller works on copper, and another fifteen replicas of varying formats and quality. Only two of the autograph examples are signed and dated: a panel in the Museum in Lierre dated 1607 (the earliest known example) and that of 161[0?] sold New York, Replica Shoes ’s, 30 January 1997, lot 86. See Ertz 2000, vol. I, pp. 68–75, nos E1 and E2 respectively, reproduced.

⁴ The standard size of the versions produced in the Brueghel workshop was around 120 x 170 cm. Unusually for Brueghel the Younger and his shop, about half of the autograph versions were painted on canvas; two versions on copper are also known. Marlier noted that the present canvas had probably been reduced by about 2cm. on either side. The technique of distemper applied to a fine linen canvas used here was more commonly found in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and would have been more familiar in Bruegel the Elder’s t.mes . The use here of a liquid under-drawing (painted rather than drawn) revealed by IRR examination does not seem to have been part of Brueghel the Younger’s workshop practice. Technical analysis by Tager, Stonor and Richardson (report dated September 2017) cited by C. Currie, Technical study: Anon, after Pieter Bruegel the Elder, ‘Flemish Proverbs’, IRPA, Brussels, dated 26 April 2019.

⁵ ‘To run as if one’s arse were on fire’ (to act in haste).

⁶ Currie 2019, p. 29, details reproduced fig.30.

⁷ The meaning of ‘the blind leading the blind’ is known to all modern viewers and is taken from Matthew 15: 14. ‘The man with the moneybag and his followers’ depicts the old Netherlandish proverb ‘to crawl into someone’s hole’, more literally meaning that wealthy men will always have flatterers. The figure of the Misanthrope advises that he who turns his back on the wicked world is at risk from robbery by its very evils. ‘The hay chasing the horse’ cautions against the active and unseemly pursuit of men by women.

⁸ Currie 2019, pp. 31–35.