On the 1595 entry in Archduke Ernst's inventory see Lhotsky 1941-45, II/1, p.217: "Kreuzigung" by Brueghel and "Der Gekreuzigte" as "Art [manner] des Bruegel." The first of these must actually refer to the piture by Pieter the Elder in the Vienna collection. Since the present work definitely is in Vienna by 1619 the second of these items could plausibly be a reference to it, yet it would be remarkable if a work that Brueghel painted in Italy (it would have to be a 1595 work) reached the Archduke so fast. My inclination is to date this work closer to 1597 and to think it was acquired for Vienna because of its intriguing similarity to works by Pieter Bruegel in that collection. If this painting was done in Italy, Jan must have had more drawings by his father with him there than we think. The soldiers fighting for the cloak are evidently based on a lost PBI painting that PBII eventually produced versions of (one is in the Church of St. Severin in Paris). Jan would repeat these figures some years later in his Munich Crucifixion, Ertz 1979 #54. It is more likely that all of this occurred in Antwerp.

Another version of this subject was owned by Cardinal Francesco Maria del Monte; inventory of 1627. It is one of the few works from the collections of Jan's Italian patrons that cannot be identified today.