The Payment of the Tithes

The present picture joins a number of other versions of this popular subject produced by Brueghel and his studio. The composition of The Payment of the Tithes is in fact unusual in Pieter II's oeuvre in that it was neither a direct copy of one of his father's compositions, nor an adaptation of a Brueghel-like composition by one of his father's contemporaries - such as Martin van Cleve - or close followers. Indeed, The Payment of the Tithes is noticeably different from Pieter I's compositional, figural and facial types, and its derivation has therefore been the subject of much discussion. One suggestion has been that the the lost prototype was French. Indeed the calendar on the wall is written in French, although this was at the time the language of the legal profession in the Netherlands, and the peasants' short beards, close-cropped hair and costumes were of a type not seen at the time in the Southern Netherlands. Klaus Ertz in his 2000 Catalogue Raisonné of Brueghel's work hypothesised that the original prototype might be a lost painting by the French artist Nicolas Baullery (1560-1630).