Two Bohemian Peasants in Half-Length (c. 1600): Art, History and Details

Two Bohemian Peasants in Half-Length (c. 1600) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Roelant Savery (Flemish, 1576–1639).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

These three drawings, which depict seated peasants at a market in the city and a team of horses led by a herder on horseback, are part of a group of approximately 80 observational drawings by Savery. His farmers, market vendors, and other everyday people are never posed and rarely glance at the viewer. Savery marked each drawing with detailed instructions regarding the colors to be used later and the words naer het leven (from the life). The works were made in Prague when Savery was employed at the court of the great patron and art collector Emperor Rudolf II, demonstrating that interest in peasant life extended even to the highest echelons of society.

Object facts

• Title: Two Bohemian Peasants in Half-Length
• Date: c. 1600
• Creator attribution: Roelant Savery (Flemish, 1576–1639)
• Culture: Flanders
• Type: Drawing
• Technique: Pen and light- and dark-brown inks over preliminary drawing in black chalk; framing lines in pen and brown ink
• Dimensions: Sheet: 15.1 x 18.8 cm (5 15/16 x 7 3/8 in.)
• Collection: DR - Flemish
• Department: Drawings
• Accession number: 1945.114

Collection credit

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Francis, Henry. "A Drawing by Pieter Bruegel the Elder." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 33, no. 4 (April 1946): 44-46.
• De Tolnay, Charles. The Drawings of Pieter Bruegel the Elder, With a Critical Catalogue. London: A. Zwemmer, 1952.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art Handbook. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1958.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.