Autumn

Accepted by Klaus Ertz, loc. cit., as an autograph work by Pieter Brueghel II, this painting derives from a design by Hans Bol. In 1570, a year after the death of Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Hieronymus Cock published a popular series of engravings depicting the four seasons. Although the first two designs in the series were provided by Bruegel, the remaining two seasons, Autumn and Winter, were not delivered before his death, and were instead executed by Bol. This series was to serve as the model for many subsequent artists, most notably Abel Grimmer and Pieter Brueghel II, who, as Ertz notes (op. cit., p. 570) became from circa 1616 particularly interested in the subject of the seasons. Unlike Grimmer, whose depictions of Autumn remained consistently close to the engraving, Pieter II adapted Bol's design, inserting motifs from his father's paintings. For example, the group including the butcher bending over the pig is based on The Census at Bethlehem (Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts, Brussels) while the addition of magpies on the far right of pays homage to The Mapgie on the Gallows (Hessisches Landesmuseum, Darmstadt).