Die Erde oder das irdische Paradies

Jan Brueghel the Elder ran the most sought-after painting workshop in Antwerp, and he was court painter to Archduke Albert and the Infanta Isabella, who governed the southern Netherlands from Brussels. They kept a menagerie of exotic animals, and it shows here. This panel is Earth, one of a set of the four elements, painted on a sheet of copper so the colours sit bright and hard like enamel. Dozens of creatures crowd a green landscape, predator standing calmly beside prey, an image of Eden before anything went wrong. Brueghel was nicknamed Velvet for the softness of his touch, and he often shared pictures like this with figure painters he trusted. Earth and its companion Air both hang in the Louvre today.