The Census at Bethlehem

The painting comes from a brief period when Bruegel painted five snowy landscapes (see gallery below), thereby establishing a genre of winter landscapes in Western art. These are firstly the Adoration of the Magi in the Snow, now redated to 1563, becoming the earliest of the group. Unlike the others, this shows snow falling. The year of the Winter Landscape with a Bird Trap, 1565, also produced The Hunters in the Snow, the most famous of the group, part of a series showing the months or seasons. The date of the Massacre of the Innocents is less certain, placed between 1565 and 1567, and The Census at Bethlehem is dated to 1566. The group have often been thought to have been influenced by a sharp decrease in winter temperatures in northern Europe, especially in the very hard winter of 1564/65. Bruegel died in 1569, aged about 44 or less.

This is a rare subject in previous Early Netherlandish art, or indeed any Western art. The ruined castle in the background, at the painting's top right, is based on the towers and gates of Amsterdam.