29 September 2010Last updated at 14:13

Appeal launched to save Brueghel

Pieter Brueghel the Younger's The Procession to Calvary (1602)

The Art Fund and National Trust have launched a £2.7m campaign to save a painting by Pieter Brueghel the Younger. The Procession to Calvary has hung at the Nostell Priory in Yorkshire for over 200 years. This gallery looks at the painting in detail.

Jesus stoops under the weight of the cross, as he trudges through the landscape towards Calvary, where he will be crucified.

The painting, owned by Lord St Oswald, has been put up for sale. The campaign has been launched with a £500,000 Art Fund donation. Completed in 1602, the painting shows Christ carrying the cross on the way to his crucifixion surrounded by some 200 people.

Calvary, or Golgotha, where Jesus was crucified, was known as the 'place of the skull'. Here, skulls, ribcages, and scattered bones are strewn across the barren landscape.

The Procession to Calvary at Nostell Priory is signed and dated P. BRVEGEL/1602. It is one of only five versions of this painting that are signed and dated by Brueghel the Younger. The earliest (1599) has been in the Uffizi, Florence since before 1686.

Two children sit on the hillside, watching the procession. Their dumpy forms are echoed in the broad basket balanced on the woman’s head in front of them.

The painting includes a host of carefully observed individual portraits: religious figures, peasants, children, animals, gentry and soldiers. Here, two children sit on the hillside, watching the procession.

These are the Virgin Mary and her three companions, the so-called 'Three Maries': Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Joseph, and Mary Salome.

Set apart from the main action on a mound overlooking the procession are four women - the Virgin Mary and her three companions: Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Joseph, and Mary Salome.

The two well-dressed men in turbans, following the procession on horseback, may be Joseph of Arimathea, in the fur-trimmed robe on the left, and Nicodemus, in the pink turban on the right.

The painting will be displayed in London's National Gallery from 5 October-9 November 2010, and then at the York Art Gallery from 18 November until Christmas. It is hoped that the remaining £2.2m can be raised by then.

Entertainment & Arts

Appeal launched to save Brueghel

Share this page

Related Internet links

Services

About BBC News