PIETER BRUEGHEL THE YOUNGER (BRUSSELS 1578 – ANTWERP 1638) The Payment of the Tithe Between 1615 and 1622 Oil on panel 70 x 104 cm. At the back of an office cluttered with bundles of papers – piled high, hanging from the ceiling, and packed into hemp sacks – sits the master of the house. Settled in his armchair, wearing the cap of a man of the law, this lawyer examines, one by one, the documents brought to him by the peasants who wait their turn, respectfully, hats in hand, in the centre of the room. Before him, an hourglass measures the time he will allow each claimant. Two clerks assist him: one, at the back, who records the proceedings, and in the foreground, the cashier who collects the fees paid by the peasants in kind: bunches of grapes, poultry, eggs, which a woman retrieves from the bottom of her basket and which are thus passed from hand to hand. The scene displays all the hallmarks of satire, both in the caricatured features of the peasants and in the lawyer’s demeanour, which highlights the social divide between the educated classes and the peasants. This painting, of which several dozen copies are known to exist worldwide—one of which is held at the Louvre—has been given various titles: The Office of a Tax Collector, The Payment of the Tithe or Rent Day. It is more likely to depict the office of a village lawyer, as stated in the inventory of a collection dating from 1627, which describes a panel painting by Brueghel the Younger as depicting ‘a French lawyer’. Many of the documents, including the calendar on the right-hand wall, are, in fact, written in French, the language used at that time for legal documents in the Netherlands. Unusually, however, the source of this composition is not the work of the artist’s father, Pieter Brueghel the Elder (1525–1569), nor of any of his contemporaries such as Marten van Cleve (1527– 81) or Peeter Baltens (1527–84), but appears to be an invention of Pieter Brueghel the Younger himself. This composition by Pieter Brueghel the Younger has proved to be one of his most popular. Known in numerous versions, of which around twenty-five are considered to be autograph works, the earliest version dates from 1615. Brueghel and his workshop produced the composition in two sizes: the smaller format measures approximately 55 x 87 cm. and the larger format, such as this example, measures approximately 76 x 123 cm. The overall design was probably transferred from a tracing and therefore remains largely the same across the various versions; the caricatured faces remain consistent and the overall scene demonstrates Brueghel’s unique talent for narrative detail. The existing versions of the composition can be broadly divided into two main groups: those with woven straw mats on the back wall of the office, with dated versions ranging from 1615 to 1617, and others with a dark cloth, as here, whose dates range from 1618 to 1626. An engraving based on the composition, for example, was published in 1618 by Paulus Fürst for a pamphlet denouncing corruption amongst lawyers, which undoubtedly provides an indication of the enduring popularity of the composition.