Abstract

This etching by Austrian artist Anton Joseph von Prenner (1683-1761) after a work by Pieter Bruegel the Elder depicts a street brawl among peasants. Stemming from a dispute over a card came, the villagers deployed the tools of peasant life – from flails for threshing grain to pitchforks – to wage battle. Note that one woman implores the men to stop to the violence, while another has joined the fight, swinging a jug at her adversaries. It is important to note, however, that historians argue that peasants infrequently resorted to physical violence in the rural countryside to settle disputes, preferring instead to employ less-violent means of conflict resolution. The image thus helped perpetuate stereotypes of peasant life held by urban elites.

Anton Josef von Prenner, Peasants Fighting (1728/1735)

Source

Source: Anton Joseph von Prenner, Peasants Fighting (after Pieter Bruegel the Elder), etching and engraving on paper, 1728/1735. National Gallery of Art
https://www.nga.gov/collection/art-object-page.57876.html

NGA