 The French writer François Rabelais employed significant numbers in his novel "Gargantua and Pantagruel", completed in 1564.The Flemish artist Frans Hogenberg made an engraving illustrating 43 proverbs in around 1558, roughly the same time as Bruegel's painting.The work is very similar in composition to Bruegel's and includes certain proverbs (like the blue cloak) which also feature prominently in "Netherlandish Proverbs".