''The Wine of Saint Martin's Day'' is the largest painting by Pieter Bruegel the Elder. It is currently held in the Museo del Prado, Madrid, where it was identified as a Bruegel original in 2010. Like much of Bruegel's work it depicts peasant life, in this case a festival known as

St. Martin's Day Saint Martin's Day or Martinmas, sometimes historically called Old Halloween or Old Hallowmas Eve, is the feast day of Saint Martin of Tours and is celebrated in the liturgical year on 11 November. In the Middle Ages and early modern period, it ...

, which involves drinking the first wine of the season.

Description of painting

The picture depicts a popular festival celebrated on 11 November. Although it is not a religious painting as such, it contains references to Christianity. There is a roadside cross, which the peasants seemingly ignore, and among the many figures is a group which alludes to the legend of

St Martin of Tours Martin of Tours ( la, Sanctus Martinus Turonensis; 316/336 – 8 November 397), also known as Martin the Merciful, was the third bishop of Tours. He has become one of the most familiar and recognizable Christian saints in France, heralded as the ...

dividing his cloak to share it with a beggar. This idea of having an important theme relegated to the side of the painting is paralleled in, for example, '' Landscape with the Fall of Icarus'', which also highlights ordinary events. The picture has been dated on stylistic grounds to the 1560s. It is one of several surviving works by this artist executed in

glue-size Glue-size is a painting technique in which pigment is bound ( sized) to cloth (usually linen) with hide glue, and typically the unvarnished cloth was then fixed to the frame using the same glue. Glue-size is also known as distemper, though the ...

on linen ('' Tüchlein''). By the early twenty-first century, when its owners took it to the Prado for restoration, the painting was not in a good state of conservation . This is not surprising as the fragile medium tends to cause conservation problems. (On the other hand, ''

The Blind Leading the Blind "The blind leading the blind" is an idiom and a metaphor in the form of a parallel phrase, it is used to describe a situation where a person who knows nothing is getting advice and help from another person who knows almost nothing. History Th ...

'', one of the other Bruegels in this medium, is in relatively good condition). After restoration, the painting was put on public display in the Prado.

Provenance

The work was identified as a Bruegel in 2010 at the Museo del Prado in

Madrid Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a Madrid metropolitan area, metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the Largest cities of the Europ ...

. A study of the surface using

X-rays An X-ray, or, much less commonly, X-radiation, is a penetrating form of high-energy electromagnetic radiation. Most X-rays have a wavelength ranging from 10 picometers to 10 nanometers, corresponding to frequencies in the range 30&nbs ...

revealed fragments of Bruegel's signature, thereby confirming his authorship. It was subsequently acquired by the Prado for less than its value on the open market. ''The Wine of Saint Martin's Day'' matches the description of a painting which was inventoried in the collection of the Gonzaga dukes of Mantua in the early seventeenth century. However, there is some doubt as to whether the painting in Mantua was the painting now in the Prado. It might, for example, have been a related painting now in Vienna's Kunsthistorisches Museum, which shows the group around St Martin.Believed to be a copy by another member of the Bruegel family, the Vienna painting replicates the Saint Martin scene. () The earliest documentary evidence which definitely relates to the work now in the Prado Museum is an inventory of the collection of a Spanish aristocrat,

Luis Francisco de la Cerda Luis Francisco de la Cerda y Aragón, 9th Duke of Medinaceli (2 August 1660, in El Puerto de Santa María – 26 January 1711, in Pamplona), 9th Duke of Medinaceli, was a Spanish noble and politician. Biography Eldest son of Valido Don Jua ...

, the ninth duke of Medinaceli. The inventory was drawn up after the duke's death in the early eighteenth century: he is assumed to have acquired the painting in Italy around the end of the seventeenth century.The painting’s provenance (Gonzaga (?), Medinaceli)
Prado website (www.museodelprado.es)

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wine of Saint Martin's Day, The Paintings by Pieter Bruegel the Elder Paintings of the Museo del Prado by Flemish artists Dogs in art Horses in art