Pieter Bruegel’s pen and ink on brown paper painting, The Painter and The Buyer, is thought to be a self-portrait of the artist. Also known as The Artist and The Connoisseur, this painting by the Northern Renaissance artist explores moral messages through its scene. Bruegel often celebrated the common mass of humanity in his paintings.
Endowed with many honours during his life, Bruegel was an apprentice to Pieter Croecke van Aelst early on. He went on to become a Master Painter when he was accepted into a painter’s guild in Antwerp. One of his earliest signed and dated works is Landscape with Christ and the Apostles at the Sea of Tiberias.
While little is known about Bruegel’s daughter, he did have three children with his wife. After residing in Brussels during the last six years of his life, Bruegel passed away as one of the greatest Dutch and Flemish Renaissance painters.
The Triumph of Death by Pieter Bruegel could possibly be referencing the Black Death pandemic that occurred during those times. Giulio Clovio had some of Bruegel’s paintings and drawings in their estate inventory.
