Hunters in the Snow

In the snow in the foreground, hunters walk with their dogs. Large bare trees spread their branches against the sky, and farther back are tiny people skating on a frozen pond, snow-covered houses, and a church tower. White mountains stretch into the distance.

This painting is a copy of a famous work (Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna) by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, the great Flemish painter of the 16th century. At the request of contemporary collectors, Pieter the Younger made copies and variations of his father's works, helping to spread his father's style. Whereas the father's work is a large 117 x 162 cm, this one is painted on a small panel, so details such as winter pastimes are simplified. In the museum's comparison, the father's painting has three hunters and fourteen dogs, while this one has five hunters and eleven dogs.

The use of color also differs: where the father's painting is unified in a limited palette like an ink painting, this one stands out for the red of the hunters' clothes and the light blue of the middle and far distance. As to whether the scene shows a specific place, theories have proposed a view from the eastern end of Lake Geneva or a village near Innsbruck, but it is considered more appropriate to see it as a "composite world landscape" assembled from real views.