In the manner of Pieter Bruegel the Elder
Netherlandish, c. 1525–1569
Saturday at the Furniture Store, 2026
Oil on oak panel
116 × 174 cm
Never painted.
Commissioned for the collection, 2026.
PAB 2026.1.2
The warehouse is laid out like a village: rooms without ceilings, a bedroom here, a sofa there, and a path that will not let you leave. Children run ahead, trolleys stall, a couple stands in a showroom deciding something about their marriage. Through the far window the real town sits by its river, ignored. Bruegel painted proverbs as places. This one is about going in for a lamp.
The brief
A cavernous flat-pack furniture warehouse seen from a mezzanine, hundreds of small figures pushing trolleys through a winding path of room displays, children lost, couples arguing over a sofa, a meatball canteen in the corner. Sixteenth-century Flemish oil painting on panel, a high vantage point looking down over a sprawling crowded scene, dozens of small figures each absorbed in their own activity, earthy greens, ochres and brick reds against a pale winter or summer sky, meticulous detail across the whole picture with no single hero, gentle satire and warmth, matte surface with fine craquelure. Museum photograph of the panel painting, even diffuse gallery lighting, no frame, no text, no wall, no floor, cropped to the canvas edge.
Written to the house rules. The painter's name does not appear.
Take it home
The painting on this room's wall, at its own proportions, nothing written on it.
