Bruegel’s Three Soldiers

One of the greatest Netherlandish painters of the sixteenth century, Pieter Bruegel the Elder (ca. 1525−1569) is best known for his landscapes and peasant scenes. One of only three signed works by Bruegel in the United States, The Three Soldiers was once in the celebrated collection of Charles I of England. The small panel in grisaille (shades of gray) represents a trio of Landsknechte, the mercenary foot soldiers whose flamboyant costumes and poses were a popular subject for printmakers of the period. This volume considers the artistic and political environment of the time and investigates how a colorful subject is transformed by its translation into monochrome.

Designed to foster critical engagement and to interest specialist and non-specialist alike, each book in the Frick Diptych series illuminates a single work in the Frick’s rich collection with an essay by a Frick curator paired with a contribution from a contemporary artist or writer.

Author biographies

Anna-Claire Stinebring is assistant curator of European Paintings, Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, NY. Prior to joining The Met, Stinebring served as Anne L. Poulet Curatorial Fellow at The Frick Collection, NY.

Salman Toor has had two solo museum exhibitions No Ordinary Love at the Baltimore Museum of Art (2022) and How Will I Know at the Whitney Museum of American Art (2020–21). Recent exhibitions include Living Histories: Queer Views and Old Masters at Frick Madison (2021-22) and solo presentation The Pleasure Pavilion: A Series of Installations at Luhring Augustine, New York (2020–21).  Toor received his MFA from the Pratt Institute. He lives in New York.

Table of Contents

• Director’s Foreword
• Acknowledgments
• Salman Toor’s Three Mascots
• Bruegel’s Three Soldiers by Anna-Claire Stinebring
• Bibliography
• Index
• Image Credits