Pieter Bruegel the Elder

Both the date and place of Bruegel’s birth are uncertain. The earliest reference to him records his entry into the Antwerp painters’ guild in 1551. He traveled to Italy around 1552, but by 1555 he was back in Antwerp. In 1563 he settled in Brussels, working thereafter both for eminent private patrons and for the city government. Bruegel’s landscape paintings and peasant scenes had a powerful and lasting influence in the Netherlands.

Source: Art in The Frick Collection: Paintings, Sculpture, Decorative Arts, New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1996.