This show can be seen as a logical follow-up to the earlier exhibition on Bosch. It brings an overview of the extensive Brueghel-clan, concentrating on its founding fathers, Pieter the Elder, Pieter the Younger and Jan the Elder. Three ideas are central. First, a prime presentation of the Brueghel family to the public in Milan and Italy. Second, a new appraisal of Jan Brueghel the Elder as a painter of true genius among the best and most influential of the late XVI/early XVII century, and thirdly, the thesis that it was for a good part thanks to the pictorial production of the Brueghel that the modern system of the artistic genres came into being. As much as five loans from and through De Jonckheere by Pieter de Younger and Jan the Elder are testimony to the new and diversified themes launched by the Brueghel, with a lasting impact on European art of the next centuries.

The Brueghels: the origins of paintings genres in Europe, featuring around ten of our paintings takes visitors on a historical and artistic journey through over 80 works, to discover a ‘dynasty’ of painters who made a decisive contribution, in the Netherlands, Italy and the rest of Europe, to the emergence of future ‘pictorial genres’.

Works lent from De Jonckheere

Pieter Brueghel the Younger, The Payment of the Tithe, 1622

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      Pieter Brueghel the Younger, Saint George’s Kermis With The Dance Around The Maypole, 1627

      
      Pieter Brueghel the Younger, The Blue Cloak

      

      Hendrick Averecamp, Winter Landscape with City Dwellers and Ice Skaters

De Jonckheere on behalf of its clients

• Jan Brueghel the Elder, The Last Judgment
• Lucas van Valckenborch, The Kermesse of St. George, 1595
• Pieter Brueghel the Younger, The Greedy Drinker
• Hendrick van Balen and Jan Brueghel the Elder, Allegory of Abundance

I Brueghel. Le origini dei generi pittorici in Europa at Palazzo Reale, Milan.
29 September 2026 – 31 January 2027
Palazzo Reale, Milan