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Winter Landscape with a Bird Trap

Winter Landscape with a Bird Trap

Artist: Pieter Brueghel II (Flemish, 1564/1565-1637/1638)
Date: about 1600-1625
Dimensions:
H: 15 1/4 in. (38.7 cm); W: 22 1/4 in. (56.5 cm)
Medium: Oil on wood panel (transferred to masonite)
Classification: Paintings
Credit Line: Purchased with funds from the Libbey Endowment, Gift of Edward Drummond Libbey
Object number: 1954.77
Label Text:The eldest son of pioneering Flemish artist Pieter Bruegel the Elder (about 1525–1569), Pieter Brueghel the Younger often copied successful compositions by his father. This work is based on Winter Landscape with a Bird Trap by Bruegel the Elder now in the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium and is one of at least 40 versions of the scene that Brueghel the Younger painted.

It shows a frozen landscape from a high viewpoint, with peasants skating and playing a version of curling on the ice. The scene stretches back into the distance to meet the low horizon of the flat Dutch landscape and a far-of town. The simple bird trap of the title can be seen on the right side of the painting, beneath the towering bare tree that anchors the composition. Bird traps were metaphors for the snares of the devil (birds being traditional symbols of the soul), and so in addition to enjoying the engaging scene of winter activity, early 17th-century viewers of the painting could also have understood it as a caution to guard against earthly temptations.

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