The Wine Of Saint Martin's Day
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''The Wine of Saint Martin's Day'' is the largest painting by the
Northern Renaissance The Northern Renaissance was the Renaissance that occurred in Europe north of the Alps, developing later than the Italian Renaissance, and in most respects only beginning in the last years of the 15th century. It took different forms in the vari ...
artist
Pieter Bruegel the Elder Pieter Bruegel (also Brueghel or Breughel) the Elder ( , ; ; – 9 September 1569) was among the most significant artists of Dutch and Flemish Renaissance painting, a painter and printmaking, printmaker, known for his landscape art, landscape ...
. 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, 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 (; 316/3368 November 397) was the third bishop of Tours. He is the patron saint of many communities and organizations across Europe, including France's Third Republic. A native of Pannonia (present-day Hungary), he converted ...
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 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'', ''Blind'', or ''The Parable of the Blind'' () is a painting by the Dutch and Flemish Renaissance painting, Netherlandish Renaissance artist Pieter Bruegel the Elder, completed in 1568. Executed in Glue-size, d ...
'', 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 List of largest cities in Spain, most populous municipality of Spain. It has almost 3.5 million inhabitants and a Madrid metropolitan area, metropolitan area population of approximately 7 million. It i ...
. A study of the surface using
X-rays An X-ray (also known in many languages as Röntgen radiation) is a form of high-energy electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength shorter than those of ultraviolet rays and longer than those of gamma rays. Roughly, X-rays have a wavelength ran ...
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 The Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien ( "Vienna Museum of art history, Art History", often referred to as the "Museum of Fine Arts, Vienna") is an art museum in Vienna, Austria. Housed in its festive palatial building on the Vienna Ring Road, i ...
, 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, 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)


See also

* List of paintings by Pieter Bruegel the Elder


References


External links


Close-up view, ''New York Times''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wine of Saint Martin's Day, The Paintings by Pieter Bruegel the Elder Paintings in the Museo del Prado by Flemish artists Dogs in art Horses in art Paintings of Saint Martin