The Blue Cloak

This article is about an old print series. For the painting based on it, see Netherlandish Proverbs. For the Japanese urban legend, see Aka Manto.
Hogenberg central figure of a woman putting the "blue cloak" over her husband

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.

In the print versions, the blue cloak or huik plays the central role:

  • Hogenberg, 1558
    Hogenberg, 1558
  • Doetecum, 1577
    Doetecum, 1577
  • Galle, 1571-1633
    Galle, 1571-1633

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: