Oil on panel

Marten van Cleve (Antwerp, c. 1527 – before 24 November1581) was a Southern Netherlandish painter and draughtsman. He came from a family of painters: his father Willem van Cleve the Elder was a master in the Antwerp Guild of Saint Luke, his older brother Hendrick III was a landscape painter and his younger brother Willem was also admitted to the guild. Marten became a master in 1551.

For his motifs he often drew inspiration from the work of Joachim Beuckelaer and Pieter Bruegel the Elder. His work shows a well-considered construction and is fluidly painted. He was above all a genre painter of peasant scenes and landscapes.

The beggars with foxtails refer to Bruegel’s The Beggars (1568, Louvre), whose figures wear the same clothing. Interpretations of its meaning differ: the foxtail is read as a symbol of deceit and folly, or as a reference to leprosy. In Bruegel’s The Fight Between Carnival and Lent (1559)l epers and disabled beggars also pass by. In his painting of 1579, Van Cleve used several motifs from Bruegel.

Carnival, or Shrovetide, is the farewell to meat and fat before the start of the forty days of Lent. The meat and the food in this scene evoke the abundance before Lent. Mid-Lent, the middle of Lent, was celebrated separately. The fourth Sunday of Lent, Laetare (“rejoice”), eased the strictness. In Brabant and Antwerp it was the feast of Saint Greef, the Count of Mid-Lent, a kind of second Saint Nicholas for children.

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