Giornata grigia

Bruegel painted this in 1565 as part of a set of six panels showing the turning year, commissioned by a wealthy Antwerp collector for his town house. This one is the early stretch, roughly February and March, when winter is breaking but spring has not arrived. The sky is a bruised grey, the sea heaves in the distance, and along the front peasants get on with the season's work, pruning the bare willows and carrying bundles of cut branches. Look for the small figure eating a waffle and the child with a paper crown, leftovers of the Carnival that falls at just this time of year. Five of the original six panels survive; this is one of three still hanging together in Vienna.