Wooded Landscape with Abraham and Isaac

By 1599 Jan Brueghel the Elder had come home to Antwerp after years in Italy, where he had worked for cardinals in Rome and Milan, and his reputation rested on landscapes painted so finely that people took to calling him Velvet Brueghel. On this small oak panel the Bible story almost hides. The forest is the real subject, dense trunks, a track winding off into shadow, a cooler distance opening toward one side. Down among the trees two small figures carry the plot. The old man on the donkey is Abraham, told by God to sacrifice his son on a far-off mountain. Walking beside him, the boy Isaac carries the bundle of firewood meant for his own altar. Brueghel signed and dated the panel in the lower left, I. Brughel 1599.