Landscape, February, Landscape, peasants, horse and cart

A very small number of pictures are currently attributed to Pieter Stevens the Younger and they conform to the Netherlandish tradition in the wake of Pieter Bruegel the Elder (c.1525-1569). Stevens was highly esteemed in his lifetime as he worked for the Court of Rudolf II at Prague. These two fragments can be placed precisely at the lower right-hand and lower left of a much larger composition, Landscape: February. It is not known when these two pieces were cut from the larger composition and the rest discarded but they preserve the human interest of the composition rather than the landscape elements. The light exaggerations of these figures follow in the tradition of Peter Bruegel the Elder and reflect the taste of the Emperor Rudolf II in Prague who favoured artists with eccentricities. In Northern art, right from the beginning, there was an interest in realism and the details of everyday life. This is particularly evident in the scene of the peasants moving their household belongings, including a plump bolster, on a heavily-laden cart.