Great Fish Market

A bustling waterside market spreads across the panel - mounds of glistening fish, baskets and barrels, fishwives and merchants haggling, boats unloading, a town and shipping beyond. Jan Bruegel the Elder, son of the great Pieter and nicknamed 'Velvet' Bruegel for his polished finish, packs the scene with hundreds of minutely painted details, each fish and figure crisp. The teeming abundance is both a feat of observation and a celebration of Flemish commercial plenty - the panoramic crowd scene he inherited from his father, here rendered with his own jewel-like precision and enamel-smooth finish.