Cleveland Museum of Art

Landscape with a Moated Village

Master of the Small Landscapes

Date

1559–61

Medium

pen and brown ink; framing lines in brown ink (bottom)

Culture

Flanders

Department

Drawings

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

The so-called small landscapes published in Antwerp in the late 1550s constitute a turning point in the history of landscape as a genre. This drawing and its related print (1964.404) from the series present the local countryside in a simple, unembellished composition from a level point of view. The artist portrayed the rustic village, pasture, and country road in a straightforward and immediate fashion. The title page for the series, issued by publisher Hieronymus Cock in Antwerp, advertised that the views were made “from the life” ( naer d’leven ), thus are real places directly observed. Such humble sites would define the golden age of Dutch landscape in the following century. The false signature "P. BREUGHEL" refers to Pieter Bruegel the Elder (c. 1529–1565) but reverses the usual order of "u-e" in the artist's name.

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