BRUEGEL, Pieter the Elder
(b. ca. 1525, Brogel, d. 1569, Brussel)

Adoration of the Kings in the Snow

1567
Tempera on panel, 35 x 55 cm
Oskar Reinhart Collection, Winterthur

Bruegel has shifted the Adoration from the centre to the left-hand edge of the picture, depicting it rather indistinctly behind a curtain of snow. The work is characterized not by the religious motif but by a natural event and the life of the people in a village in wintertime. It is possible that we have here the first painting in the history of European art to depict falling snow.