Brussels: area by area: The Upper Town – Musées Royaux de Beaux-Arts: Musée d’Art Ancien - BRUEGEL

Pierre BRUEGEL the Elder
Oak - 115,5 x 163,5 cm

The centuries-long story of the Holy Family going to Bethlehem for the imperial census is situated in the daily life of a Brabant village in the 16th century. Warmly wrapped up, Mary, pregnant with the Infant Jesus, is making her way through this village, sitting on a donkey led by Joseph, towards the inn, where the census is taking place.
The group, although situated virtually in the centre, is mingled with the crowd and passes unseen among the people, who are preoccupied with what they are doing.

The village is covered with snow under the transparency of an immovable sky. Everything is observed with accuracy: the motley crowd in front of the inn, the pig being bled, children playing with tops or snowballs… In the background, the church, the cow-shed under construction and the ruins of the castle are not those of a real village, but remind us of a symbolic order: with the decline of the Old Covenant - the ruin - comes the New Covenant, still fragile in the cow-shed, accomplished in the church, incarnated by the Infant in His mother’s lap, invisible to the world, yet the centre of the story.