A fascinating painting by Pieter Brueghel the Younger has just come up for sale.  The National Trust and the Art Fund are campaigning to purchase the picture which dates back to 1602.

The painting shows Christ being taken to Calvary.  If you look closely at the image you can see a conflict of eras which is quite quaint.  I particularly like the portion of the picture (displayed here) that shows Jerusalem complete with a windmill which seems to dominate that portion of the picture.

If successfully purchased the painting will remain on view in Nostell Priory.  It is a place I have never been, I need to rectify that :-)

For the full report and more pictures of the painting go here.

8 Comments CherryPie on Oct 5th 2010

8 Responses to “Nostell Brueghel”

  1. I suppose people in early seventeenth-century Flanders had only the vaguest idea what Jerusalem actually looked like, so they just painted what they knew, plus a few ‘exotic’ add-ons. It would also have made the image more immediate for the contemprary viewers – like seeing Christ walk down your street.

    • CherryPie says:

      Yes it isn’t as if they had lots of photos available for reference as we do today.

      I like the little embellishments, they add a lot of interest to the painting.

  2. jameshigham says:

    Jerusalem with windmill – like it.

  3. Claudia says:

    Thank you so much for the link. It’s wonderful to see all the details of the painting. And also previous artworks. Great blog.

  4. Charlie Brown says:

    The vendor of the Breughel, Lord St.Oswald, had over £4M of public National Lottery cash just seven years ago when he sold other pictures and chattels at Nostell to the National Trust. Why the need to sell this picture now? Why can’t the National Trust move on – if the donor family have such scan regard for their own and the nation’s heritage – and commission a work from a living artist (at a fraction of the cost) to take this picture’s place?