The renaissance painter Pieter Bruegel the Elder is best known today for his tranquil winter scenes so when Spain’s Prado Museum discovered a previously unknown work, they were surprised to see a group of peasants throwing up their lunch at a wild grape harvest.
The new work was discovered after restoration of another painting that had been attributed to his son (Bruegel the Younger). The painting is called ‘The Wine of Saint Martin’s Day’ and, at more than three metres wide, is Bruegel’s largest surviving canvas and one of his few signed works (only forty one of the 16th century Dutchman’s paintings survive today).
The painting depicts a scene of more than a hundred peasants scurrying up a giant red wine keg. There’s pick-pockets, brawling, a baby being fed wine and a drunk sprawling around in his own vomit.
The owners of the painting bought the work to the Prado museum believing it to be by Bruegel the Younger. When the curators began to lift away the dirt they concluded that the style of the painting clearly indicated it to be the work of the better known Papa Bruegel.
The canvas continues to be conserved and is apparently safely secured in a bunker-like vault in the museum basement.
