Wide Mountain Landscape with Travellers and Beggars

In a breathtaking Alpine valley, wealthy travellers on horseback encounter a rural family seeking alms. Their scale renders the landscape ever vaster. Such scenes of encounter between disparate social classes were popular during this time, and allowed artists to showcase a variety of costumes and poses.


The figures in this painting were likely painted by Jan Brueghel the Elder, and the landscape would have been executed by Joos de Momper the Younger. Much like musicians today, artists with different specialties often collaborated to produce novel compositions.