Jan Brueghel the Elder Brussels 1568 - 1625 Antwerp

Antoine-César-Gabriel, Duc de Praslin (1712 - 1785), Paris;
W.S.C. Curtis, Marley House, Battle;
With Edward Speelman, London;
From whom acquired by the late father of the present owners in 1961.

This appears to be the lost original by Jan Brueghel the Elder, last recorded in the collection of the Duc de Praslin in Paris during the 18th century, and known to Klaus Ertz only through an old engraving in reverse (see fig. 1). 

As pointed out by Ertz, the painting can be dated circa 1611 by comparison with two similar landscapes, both signed and dated 1611: one, today in the Alte Pinakothek, Munich; the other in the Gemäldegalerie, Dresden (op. cit., p. 597, cat. nos. 236 & 237, reproduced p. 66, figures 37 & 38 respectively). All three compositions share in common an open landscape viewed from a high vantage-point, with a panoramic and seemingly limitless horizon (reminiscent of the Weltlandschaft tradition of Joachim Patinir and Herri met de Bles), punctuated by a row of windmills positioned above a track running diagonally across the scene, populated with figures loading and unloading grain from horse-drawn carts. These pictures belong to a homogeneous group of landscapes painted by Jan Brueghel the Elder during the first two decades of the 17th century, which share similar subject matter and compositional schemes.

A painting of a similar overall mise-en-scène by Jan Brueghel the Elder, in which the motif in the centre foreground of the figure with a grey and brown horse beside a cart is repeated, was offered New York, Sotheby's, 17 January 1992, lot 32. Two contemporary copies after the present work are known: one in the Museo del Prado, Madrid, inv. no. 1435 (see K. Ertz, op.cit, p. 167, reproduced fig. 183, p. 598, under no. 244, and p. 521, note 160); and one in the Ulster Museum, Belfast, inv. no. 17 (op. cit., p. 598, under no. 244, and p. 521, note 160).