Where Is The Adoration of the Kings? Museum Location

Q: Why does this Adoration look different from other Bruegels?

Bruegel typically painted panoramic landscapes with small figures. This early work uses large, closely grouped figures borrowed from Italian Mannerist compositions.

Q: Where can I see this painting?

This version hangs at the Royal Museums of Fine Arts in Brussels. A later 1564 version is at London's National Gallery.

Q: How is this painting different from the London version?

This is an earlier work (c. 1556) in tempera on canvas. The 1564 London version uses oil on panel and shows Bruegel's mature style with more individualized facial expressions.

Pieter Bruegel the Elder completed this tempera on canvas around 1556. Unlike his usual landscape-format works, this Northern Renaissance scene fills the composition with large figures rather than panoramic views. The three kings present gifts to the Christ child while onlookers crowd around with distinct, sometimes grotesque expressions.

Bruegel borrowed the tight grouping from Italian Mannerists like Parmigianino, but his faces remain firmly Northern in their unflinching realism. The presence of soldiers offers subtle commentary on the Spanish Inquisition then tightening its grip on the Netherlands. Bruegel painted another, more famous version in 1564 (now in London's National Gallery) using oil on panel. This earlier canvas version measures 124 x 169 cm and hangs at the Royal Museums of Fine Arts in Brussels.

Bruegel typically painted panoramic landscapes with small figures. This early work uses large, closely grouped figures borrowed from Italian Mannerist compositions.

This version hangs at the Royal Museums of Fine Arts in Brussels. A later 1564 version is at London's National Gallery.

The soldiers in the scene subtly reference the Spanish Inquisition, which was intensifying in the Netherlands when Bruegel painted this work around 1556.

This is an earlier work (c. 1556) in tempera on canvas. The 1564 London version uses oil on panel and shows Bruegel's mature style with more individualized facial expressions.

The Adoration of the Kings

Where to See It

The Artist

More by Pieter Bruegel the Elder

Soldiers at Rest

Mountain landscape with a river

Big fishes eat small fishes

The Fight between Carnival and Lent

Also at Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium

Virgin and Child With St. Anne and a Franciscan donor

Mass of Saint Gregory

Crucifixion with a Donor

Rome, Castle Sant Angelo

Related Renaissance Works

Sistine Madonna

The Birth of Venus

The School of Athens

The Alba Madonna

Venus of Urbino

Venus with a Mirror

Laocoön

Pallas and the Centaur

About The Adoration of the Kings

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