The nest ejector

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The nest ejector (Pieter Bruegel the Elder)
The nest ejector
Pieter Bruegel the Elder , 1568
Oil on oak
59.3 x 68.3 cm
Kunsthistorisches Museum , Vienna

The oil painting The Nestausnehmer (also The nest robbers or Bauer and bird thief called) by Pieter Bruegel the Elder from the year 1568 is located in Vienna's Kunsthistorisches Museum . The 59.3 centimeter high and 68.3 centimeter wide oak panel shows a man pointing to a second who has climbed a tree and is about to take eggs from a bird's nest. The work has been given different interpretations.

description

In the center of the foreground is a man in peasant clothes on the edge of a small stream. He takes up about three quarters of the picture's height and has shifted his weight on the presented right foot. He's holding a stick in his right hand, and with his left he points over his shoulder to a second man in bright red trousers who has climbed a tree behind him. There he holds himself with one arm and by wrapping his feet around a fork of a branch, while he reaches into a bird's nest with his free hand. The left half of the picture is occupied by other trees, while the right half of the picture shows a field. On the horizon line, roughly in the middle of the picture, there are more trees and a farm.

The painting is trimmed on the right and below and measures 59.3 centimeters in height and 68.3 centimeters in width. It is in gold color with the last name of the artist bottom left signed and given a year: "Brvegel MDLXVIII". Signature and date have been renewed.

Interpretations

René van Bastelaer and Georges Hulin de Loo explained the picture with a Flemish proverb that can be found on a drawing with the title The Beekeepers (alternatively: The Beekeepers ). There it says: "dye the nest weet dyen weeten, dyen ro [o] ft dy [en] heeten" , which means: "Whoever knows where the nest is has the knowledge, whoever robbed it has the property." Van Bastelaer and Hulin de Loo relate the picture to a description in the estate of Archduke Leopold Wilhelm , where it says: “A landscape from Öhlfarb on Holcz, a Baur with a beating in the linckher hand was a boy who was troubling on one Tree pruning birds. - In a black frame, the height 2 span 4 fingers, the braidte 4 span 3 fingers. Original by Junge Breugel. ”According to Hulin des Loos, the farmer points to the nest without realizing that it is being robbed behind his back.

However, Kjell Boström pointed out that in the oldest known mention of the motif, neither the description of the dimensions nor the information given by the painter match the picture. And Roger Marijhaben and Max Seidel objected to Hulin de Loo's interpretation that the farmer in the foreground looked stupid and was about to fall into the brook. The main character turns to the viewer for explanation and obviously does not threaten the ejector. The application of the proverb to the picture is therefore not satisfactory.

literature

Web links

Commons : The nest ejector  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Farmer and bird thief. (No longer available online.) In: Online catalog of the Kunsthistorisches Museum. Archived from the original on October 16, 2014 ; Retrieved October 4, 2011 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / bilddatenbank.khm.at
  2. ^ Marijhaben, Seidel: Bruegel . 1969, p. 343 .
  3. ^ A b Marijhaben, Seidel: Bruegel . 1969, p. 51 f .
  4. ↑ a b René van Bastelaer, Georges Hulin de Loo: Pieter Bruegel l'Ancien. son œvre et son temps . Brussels, S. 299 (1905–1907; quoted from Marijnisse, Seidel: Bruegel. 1969, p. 51.).
  5. ↑ a b Boström: The proverb of the bird's nest . 1949.