Works by the Flemish painter Pieter Bruegel the elder (1525-69) have been discussed previously in this series . Bruegel was the head of an artistic dynasty; his sons Pieter the younger (c1564-1638) discussed here, and Jan the elder and grandsons Peter III and Jan the younger being accomplished artists. The featured 117 x 168 cm oil-on-panel The Census at Bethlehem painted by Pieter Brueghel the younger is held by the Musee des Beaux Arts, Arras in France. It is one of many copies of a work his father painted in 1566 and which hangs in the Royal Museums of Fine Arts in Brussels, Belgium. The paintings depict the census preceding the nativity of Jesus according to St. Luke, 'a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered'. Since people had to register for the census in their ancestral towns, Joseph travelled from Nazareth with the expectant Mary 'to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem'. Incidentally, in Italy and in Flanders, aspiring painters were usually apprenticed to their father and were required to be admitted to the Guild of St. Luke, the patron of painters, saddlers, glassworkers and mirror-workers.
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