Massacre of the Innocents (Bruegel)

Several oil-on-oak-panel versions of The Massacre of the Innocents were painted by 16th-century Netherlandish painters Pieter Bruegel the Elder and his son Pieter Brueghel the Younger. The work translates the Biblical account of the Massacre of the Innocents into a winter scene in the Southern Netherlands in the prelude to the Dutch Revolt against Spanish rule, also known as the Eighty Years' War.

What is now thought to be the only version by Bruegel the Elder (c.1565-1567) is in the British Royal Collection; for some time at Hampton Court Palace, since 2017 (to late 2024) it has been in Windsor Castle. It appears that Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor ordered it overpainted to hide images of dead and dying children, which have been replaced by food items and sacks of goods.

Many other versions are attributed to Pieter Brueghel the Younger, with different art historians listing as many as 7 or 14 versions, including leading examples in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, in the Oldmasters Museum in Brussels, and in the National Museum of Art of Romania in Bucharest. Most of these show the dead children of the original composition. Pieter Brueghel the Younger also painted his own different composition of the Massacre of the Innocents: one example is in the Oldmasters Museum.