Village Street

At 8 by 12.8 centimetres, this village street is smaller than a postcard. Brueghel painted it in 1610 on a sheet of copper, and that support is what made a picture this small workable. Antwerp painters generally did not prepare such plates themselves. They bought them from coppersmiths in the city, who beat the metal flat and smooth, and one of the best known, Pieter Stas, stamped his mark on the back of plates that ended up in Brueghel's studio. Whether this particular plate carries a maker's mark, the museum's record does not say. The Alte Pinakothek keeps it in a display case in Cabinet 9, where the row of houses can be studied from a few centimetres away.