Massacre of the Innocents c.1550-1600
Oil on panel | 75.8 x 106.6 x 0.6 cm (support, canvas/panel/stretcher external) | RCIN 402766
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In a snow-covered landscape soldiers in armour, some on horseback, disperse to massacre children. In the left foreground villagers plead with a mounted soldier and on the right a soldier with a knife runs after a woman with her child. The Biblical story of The Massacre of the Innocents is described in Matthew (II, 16). Herod ordered the execution of all young male children in the village of Bethlehem, so as to avoid the loss of his throne to the newborn King of the Jews whose birth had been announced to him by the Magi. This painting is one of more than twenty surviving versions of the same composition, three of which are signed ‘P. BREVGHEL’. It is a copy after the much-repeated composition by Pieter Brueghel the Younger, which emulated the celebrated 'Massacre of the Innocents' by Pieter Bruegel the Elder (RCIN 405787).
Provenance
Purchased by Charles I with the Mantuan collection; recorded in the Long Gallery at Whitehall in 1639 (no 58); sold from Somerset House for £3 15s to Mallory on 11 December 1649 (no 21); recovered at the Restoration and listed in the King's Privy Gallery at Whitehall in 1666 (no 101)
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Creator(s)
Previously attributed to (artist)Acquirer(s)
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Medium and techniques
Oil on panel
Measurements
75.8 x 106.6 x 0.6 cm (support, canvas/panel/stretcher external)
75.8 x 106.7 cm (support, canvas/panel/stretcher external)
96.0 x 126.6 x 6.5 cm (frame, external)
Other number(s)
Alternative title(s)
The Murder of the Innocents
The Killing of the Innocents
The Slaying of the Innocents by Herod
A Winterpiece & Killing Ye Innocents