Landscape with Farmers Going to a Market

On a slightly raised road in the foreground, a group of farmers rests beneath a large tree with a horse carrying loads. In the distance, a wide land with a river lies hazy in bluish tones, and buildings appear small on a hill.

A composition that places small, clearly drawn figures in the foreground and looks down on the distant town in hazy bluish aerial perspective is said to be the most successful type of Jan's landscapes. There are three other works with the same composition (1600, Hannover museum; 1601, private collection; 1603, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna), and the museum's commentary says, citing Yvonne Thiéry, that this is the earliest of them. It is one of the small works that give a glimpse of his style in the late 1590s, when he had begun working as a painter in Antwerp.

Jan was the second son of Pieter Bruegel the Elder, who died when Jan was two years old. He is also called "Velvet Brueghel" for his fine, smooth surfaces, and he was a close friend of Rubens, with whom he left works made together.