One of the greatest Netherlandish artists, Pieter Bruegel the Elder (1525/30-1569) is best known today for his paintings of peasant life. Yet it was above all through his exceptional graphic work that he achieved widespread fame during the sixteenth century. His drawings and prints made after his designs, while based on traditional sources, are innovative and independent, and they are wide ranging in their subject matter. This volume is the exhibition catalogue for Pieter Bruegel the Elder: Drawings and Prints, held at Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam (May-August 2001) and at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (September-December 2001). It offers essays by international scholars on Bruegel's life, his work as a draftsman, and his role as a designer of prints, examining the graphic dimension of his output. It discusses how recent research has changed what is attributed to him, how his drawings and designs for engravings and etchings functioned in his time, and places them in intellectual, social, political, and artistic context. A catalogue section treats more than 140 works included in the exhibition, with full reproductions of print and drawing works, many comparative illustrations, references, provenance information, bibliography, and an index.