Attributed to Jan Brueghel the Elder and Studio

Art Institute of Chicago, from 1948 until now (Gift of Mr. Arthur Keating, 1948; inv. no. 1948.571).

Paintings in the Art Institute of Chicago: A Catalogue of the Picture Collection, Chicago 1961, p. 61; 
K. Ertz, Jan Brueghel der Ältere, Cologne 1979, p. 585, under cat. no. 164 (as a copy);
K. Ertz, Jan Brueghel der Ältere, vol. III, Lingen 2008-10, p. 918, under cat. no. 432, and p. 919, footnotes 7 and 8 (as a copy).

The following condition report is provided by Sarah Walden who is an external specialist and not an employee of Sotheby's. This painting is on a fine oak panel with added strips on each side. The cradling is old and has induced regular vertical cracks, with one down the centre. The restoration is also old and the retouching has darkened. This is most noticeable in the background, where the minute craquelure in the original dark shading over a light ground can only be seen in places. Old retouching is also visible down the vertical cracks in the lower right foreground and the old retouching of some flowers such as the blue iris at upper right is far from the exquisite finesse of those flowers that have remained intact. Glazing in some flowers has been lost, the roses have only faint traces left of rose madder in the delicate definition of their petals, however some fine detail has remained intact, including many of the small blue flowers and the magnificent yellow and red tulip at the crest of the still life. This report was not done under laboratory conditions.
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

Although long considered a copy of the painting in the Kunsthistorisches Vienna (fig. 1), which Ertz dated to circa 1607, the Art Institute of Chicago's recent decision to sell this painting for the benefit of their acquisition fund has precipitated further study and reappraisal.¹  The painting was inspected in the original in May 2012 by Drs. Fred G. Meijer of the Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie in The Hague: Drs. Meijer has noted the excellent quality of, in particular, the irises and the tulips, which he considers too advanced in technique for a copyist and stylistically very similar to other works of the same date by Brueghel to which the panel is related, such as those in Vienna and Prague.²  From a technical point of view, Drs. Meijer views the very particular degradation of pigments as typical of Jan's flower still lifes from this date as, too, he does the composition which, with the removal of the two extensions at each margin, would see the blooms brought right up to the edge of the picture plane. The visible changes the artist has made to the vase further argue against Ertz's summation. Thus the type of composition, which dates to circa 1605-10, the very high quality of the execution of certain flowers, together with other aforementioned technical elements argue strongly for the authorship of Jan Brueghel the Elder himself in the years prior to 1610, which is to say prior to the arrival in the studio of his son Jan Brueghel the Younger, to whom some scholars had previously attributed the painting. Drs. Meijer has however pointed to several weaker areas of execution, such as the white rose in the centre, which he feels denote the collaboration of an assistant in the studio.  

Brueghel has replaced the Vienna vase with a wide-bottomed version and removed the coin and ring from the lower right. Every other flower from the Vienna panel is replicated, though in a different position and in many cases with subtle changes of disposition. Brueghel has added a cabbage white and other insects, while removing others. He has elongated the earlier composition in Vienna and used a considerably larger panel (the Vienna panel measures 51 by 40 cm.) so that there is now an explosion of space between each bloom. This is particularly noticeable around the edges and towards the apex of the bouquet. Drs. Meijer has said that such elongation argues for a dating nearer 1610 than 1605.

1.  See Ertz, under literature, 2008-10, pp. 913-19, no. 432, reproduced.
2.  Ibid., pp. 919-23, no. 434.