Village Scene with a Canal

A canal runs straight down the middle of this small copper plate and draws the eye along it, past moored barges and figures at the landing, to the point where water, trees and sky close together. Everything else is arranged to send you down that line. The houses lean in from both sides, a tall tree on the left frames the view, and the road in front opens into a broad patch of village life. A man and a woman walk hand in hand towards us. Men stand talking in groups, a white horse waits beside a cart, pigs and ducks pick about in the dirt, and on the right a man works among stacked timber by a house. The museum dates it to 1609. Jan Brueghel had been painting village views of this kind for a few years by then, and the plate measures about 22 by 34 centimetres, made to be held close and read slowly. The collectors Rose-Marie and Eijk van Otterloo gave it to the Museum of Fine Arts in 2019.