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Research dossier · Arts & Letters

The Triumph of Death

painting by Pieter Bruegel the Elder

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 22, 2026
Entity authorityQ644856 ↗
Source-derived summary

The Triumph of Death is an oil panel painting by Pieter Bruegel the Elder painted c. 1562. It has been in the Museo del Prado in Madrid since 1827.

This painting is part of the BBC's 100 Great Paintings.

Description

The painting shows a panorama of an army of skeletons wreaking havoc across a blackened, desolate landscape. Fires burn in the distance, and the sea is littered with shipwrecks.

A few leafless trees stud hills otherwise bare of vegetation. Fish lie rotting on the shores of a corpse-choked pond. Art historian James Snyder emphasizes the "scorched, barren earth, devoid of any life as far as the eye can see."

In this setting, legions of skeletons advance on the living, who either flee in terror or try in vain to fight back. In the foreground, skeletons haul a wagon full of skulls.

Editorial summary

“The Triumph of Death” enters the record as painting by Pieter Bruegel the Elder. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Triumph, Death and painting can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA useful identification and reception guide that helps separate the work itself from editions, performances, ownership and later interpretation. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1562, 1827—that can be checked directly. The authority record carries competing date values—1560, 1562-01-01—which should remain separate until their references and qualifiers are resolved. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Triumph, Death and painting.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“The Triumph of Death” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Triumph, Death and painting provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q644856. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1562 and 1827.

Critical limits

Titles can refer to several editions, objects or performances, making precise identification essential before interpretation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
Verify next

The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “The Triumph of Death”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow The Triumph of Death primary sources, The Triumph of Death archive and Triumph research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “The Triumph of Death”?
  2. How did later circulation or interpretation alter the work’s reception?
  3. Where is authorship, date or provenance documented?
Subject index

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “The Triumph of Death” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.