Renaissance painter Pieter Brueghel the Elder is also known as "Peasant Brueghel" because of his penchant for depicting scenes of rural life in his Dutch homeland. He liked to put together individual, smaller scenes to form a kind of “hidden object picture” where viewers could spy individual characters that often had grotesque features.
Winter landscapes were also among his motifs. His Winter landscape with ice skaters and a bird trap was created in 1565. The oil painting, applied to an oak panel, shows people skating on a frozen river against a village backdrop. A larger city can be seen in the distance. On the right in the foreground, the eponymous bird trap was placed along with its potential victims.
Related: Winter in 10 Artworks
The painting refers, literally, to the winter of 1564-1565, described as very harsh. Figuratively speaking, the work, as we expect from Brueghel, contains a host of symbols.
The river's layer of ice, which can break at any time, symbolizes the dangers that the Christian believer may face on his way to the kingdom of heaven, from nature and the devil. The bird trap represents Satan seizing the souls of men (the soul has often been represented in the form of a bird).
Want articles like this straight to your inbox? Subscribe to our free newsletter here!
Pieter Brueghel the Younger, who was born shortly before the painting was created, often copied his father's works, but not without giving them his personal style. Of the numerous copies that exist of The Bird Trap, at least 45 are considered to be the younger Pieter's own copy. The oldest of these signed copies dates to 1601 and is exhibited in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna.
The painting's combination of an idyllic winter scene with lurking symbolism about mortality has made it popular for centuries. Bird Trap copies by Pieter Brueghel the Younger are highly sought after at auction today. The record was last set in July 2014 when a copy sold at Sotheby's London for £3.4 million ($6.6 million).