Large Calvary

Jan Brueghel the Elder signed and dated this crowded Crucifixion in 1604, the year he was in Prague at the court of Emperor Rudolf II, a ruler famous for hoarding art and curiosities. There he would have seen a drawing by Albrecht Dürer known as the Great Calvary, made nearly a century before, and he worked his own painting freely from it. Brueghel was a son of the great Pieter Bruegel and made his own name with jewel-like landscapes and still lifes, which earned him the nickname Velvet Brueghel. Here he packs the hill of Golgotha with dozens of tiny figures under a wide sky. Dürer's drawing later reached the Uffizi too, where this small panel has hung since 1784.