print
- Museum number
- 1948,0410.4.216
- Title
-
Object: Ver
-
Series: The Four Seasons
- Description
-
Plate 1: Spring. Peasants straightening and planting a formal garden in foreground, shearing sheep in middleground, and sowing a field in the distance, a well-to-do party relaxing in a garden at left before a manor house in background. 1570
Engraving
- Production date
- 1570
- Dimensions
-
Height: 225 millimetres
-
Width: 283 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- This is one of a series of four, for comment see 1948,0410.4.218. For another impression see F,1.23.
A preparatory drawing for this print in the Albertina, Vienna, is signed and dated 1565, inv.no23.750; Pieter Bruegel probably never made a painting of it, although many painted versions are known by the hand of his son Pieter Brueghel II (see K. Ertz, 'Pieter Brueghel der Jüngere', Lingen, 2000, cat.nos. E603-E626 and Johnny Van Haeften, 'Dutch and Flemish Old Master Paintings 19', London, no.6).
The Latin verse to the right is taken from an epigram by Euphorbius; see Ilya Veldeman, 'Seasons, planets and temperaments in the work of Maarten van Heemskerck; cosmo-astrological allegory in sixteenth-century Netherlandish prints,' in Simiolus 11, no. 3/4 (1980), pp. 159-60.
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 1753
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1948,0410.4.216
