Picture 5 / 7
Pieter Bruegel the Elder, The Census at Bethlehem, 1566
Bruegel moves Bethlehem to a Flemish village in deep winter. People crowd in front of an inn to be counted and to pay; hardly anyone notices the woman on the donkey who arrives in the middle of the picture, led by a man with a saw over his shoulder.
The panel is signed and dated 1566. Luke's census under the emperor Augustus becomes a tax collection of Bruegel's own time, with the Habsburg eagle on the wall of the inn. Children play on the ice, a pig is slaughtered, and the sun sets red behind the bare tree.
Mary rides wrapped in her cloak; Joseph walks ahead with a saw over his shoulder. Nothing marks them out but their place in the middle.
At the window of the inn money is counted and names are written down. Above the door hangs a wreath, the sign of a tavern.
