Dull Gret
| Dulle Griet (Dull Gret) | |
|---|---|
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| Artist | Pieter Bruegel the Elder |
| Year | c. 1562 |
| Type | Oil on panel |
| Dimensions | 115 cm × 161 cm (45 in × 63 in) |
| Location | Museum Mayer van den Bergh, Antwerp |
Dulle Griet (anglicized as Dull Gret), also known as Mad Meg, is a figure of Flemish folklore who is the subject of a 1562 oil-on-panel by Flemish renaissance artist Pieter Bruegel the Elder. The painting depicts a virago, Dulle Griet, who leads an army of women to pillage Hell, and is currently held and exhibited at the Museum Mayer van den Bergh in Antwerp.
The signature and the date on this painting are illegible, but its close compositional and stylistic similarity to The Fall of the Rebel Angels and The Triumph of Death, makes it likely that it was painted in about 1562 and destined for a series. Like those pictures, Dulle Griet owes much to Hieronymus Bosch.
Bruegel's earliest biographer, Karel van Mander, writing in 1604, described the painting as "Dulle Griet, who is looking at the mouth of Hell". It came into the collections of Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor, then was looted by the Swedish troops in 1648, and reappeared in in 1800. Art collector Fritz Mayer van den Bergh discovered it in 1897 at an auction in Cologne, where he bought it for a minimal sum, discovering its actual author a few days later.
Griet was a disparaging name given to any bad-tempered, shrewish woman. Her mission refers to the Flemish proverb:
She could plunder in front of hell and return unscathed.
Bruegel is thus making fun of noisy, aggressive women. At the same time he castigates the sin of covetousness: although already burdened down with possessions, Griet and her grotesque companions are prepared to storm the mouth of Hell itself in their search for more.
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