Trois Crayons Magazine, November 2026
This month’s Real or Fake quiz follows on from last month’s pair related to Pieter Bruegel the Elder (no points for guessing the artist’s name as both sheets are helpfully inscribed!). Although the bagpipe player tipping precariously on a three-legged stool is a wholly typical subject for Bruegel, as a study of a single figure, it is a relatively rare survival. One of these two drawings is Bruegel’s original, while the other is a copy – a product of the so-called Bruegel ‘renaissance’ in the Netherlands around 1600. Can you determine which is which?
-
The original is the upper image.
Upper (left) Image: Pieter Bruegel the Elder (1526/27–1569), The Bagpipe Player, c. 1562, the National Gallery of Art, Washington, inv. no.: 2016.127.2
Lower (right) Image: Netherlandish School, 16th century, Seated Man, Precariously Balanced, Playing Bagpipes, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, inv. no.: 1975.131.172Although in a poorer state of preservation and visibly cropped along the upper edge, Bruegel’s original drawing is the upper sheet. The copy can be distinguished by its overly formulaic hatching. Despite being an anonymous copy, the drawing retains considerable value: first, it reveals the entire composition, showing the full length of the pipes; second, early copies such as this offer insights into the reception of Bruegel’s drawings, testifying to his early recognition as the greatest sixteenth-century Netherlandish artist.
