page_title: The Blue Cloak
hierarchical_section_title: The Blue Cloak
caption_attribution_description: English: The Blue Cloak, 43 proverbs in visual demonstrations, most prominently a woman who puts her cloak over her husband, a way of saying she is deceiving him (pulling the wool over his eyes). Published around the time of Pieter Brueghel's Netherlandish Proverbs painting.
context_page_description: The Blue Cloak, or De Blauwe Huik, refers to an old concept for a popular 16th-century print series featuring Flemish proverbs. The prints were generally captioned according to each depicted proverb, and central to these was a woman pulling a cloak over a man. That proverb is also central to a 1559 painting called Netherlandish Proverbs by Pieter Bruegel the Elder.
  That painting, dated 1559, is considered the best of a series of similar paintings which at one time or other have all previously been attributed to Pieter Bruegel the Elder, has been x-rayed for its underdrawing to compare it to other versions. None of the versions have a provenance going back further than the late 19th-century, but Brueghel scholars believe that the paintings are the elder Bruegel's inventions, which all make use of a life-size cartoon with the same underdrawing as that used in the Berlin version. The paintings, which are not inscribed, tease the viewer into guessing proverbs. They are based on 1558 and earlier engravings that are inscribed, in Flemish.
context_section_description: The Blue Cloak, or De Blauwe Huik, refers to an old concept for a popular 16th-century print series featuring Flemish proverbs. The prints were generally captioned according to each depicted proverb, and central to these was a woman pulling a cloak over a man. That proverb is also central to a 1559 painting called Netherlandish Proverbs by Pieter Bruegel the Elder. 
  That painting, dated 1559, is considered the best of a series of similar paintings which at one time or other have all previously been attributed to Pieter Bruegel the Elder, has been x-rayed for its underdrawing to compare it to other versions. None of the versions have a provenance going back further than the late 19th-century, but Brueghel scholars believe that the paintings are the elder Bruegel's inventions, which all make use of a life-size cartoon with the same underdrawing as that used in the Berlin version. The paintings, which are not inscribed, tease the viewer into guessing proverbs. They are based on 1558 and earlier engravings that are inscribed, in Flemish. The most notable of these regarding the paintings is by Frans Hogenberg, and it is dated 1558 and accompanied by the title Die blau huicke is dit meest ghenaemt, maer des weerelts abvisen he beter betaempt (English: Often called 'The Blue Cloak', this could better be called 'The World's Follies'). The Doetecum brothers produced a print series in 1577 called De Blauwe Huyck. Theodoor Galle also made a print, dated later, with a similar title: Dese wtbeeldinghe wort die blauw hvyck genaemt, maer deze werelts abvysen haer beter betaemt.
  Some of the paintings:
  In the print versions, the blue cloak or huik plays the central role:
  Later versions:
  The painter David Teniers the Younger, who married Brueghel's granddaughter, also made a painting with his own modern interpretation of the same proverbs in 1645, which also surround a central "Blue cloak" scene:
caption: Hogenberg central figure of a woman putting the "blue cloak" over her husband
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