Jan Brueghel the Elder Brussels 1568 - 1625 Antwerp and Joos de Momper

Thorlaif Nyegaard, Oslo;
With Leonard Koetser, London, 1962, from whom purchased by the present owner;
Private Collection.

Leonard Koetser, London, 1962.

K. Ertz, Josse de Momper der Jüngere, Freren 1986, pp.147-8 & 504-5, cat. no. 147, reproduced p. 154, fig. 141.

"The following condition report has been provided by Sarah Walden, an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. This painting is on a fine oak panel with one joint a third of the way down. It appears to have been slightly thinned with narrow strips added behind in the original bevels at each end before being cradled comparatively recently. The joint however does not appear to have ever opened or been reglued, but simply has an occasional narrow line of retouching in one or two places. There is one quite short crack just below the middle of the left edge running in for about three inches, but no other trace of movement in the panel to account for the cradle, although neither are there any signs of strain from its imposition. The base edge also has a narrow strip, about a centimetre wide, evidently added and retouched when the painting was restored and cradled a few decades ago. In the base corners just above this strip there are one or two minor superficial retouchings, and in the sky at the upper left corner slightly thinner parts of the cloud have been strengthened. The craquelure is clearly continuous beneath the slightly yellowed retouching and the paint may well have become naturally more transparent with age rather than through wear. Elsewhere there is no sign of thinness, even in the beautifully rich deep brown of the rocks in the lower right foreground, always the most vulnerable. There are two other minute retouchings in the lower sky and in the centre left landscape but these are minimal imperfections in an exceptionally intact painting. Both the liquid free flowing brushwork of de Momper's landscape and the fine crisp detail of Brueghel's figures are beautifully preserved. 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."

Momper trained with his father Bartolomeus de Momper, and is listed as becoming a member of the Guild of Saint Luke in 1581, before travelling to Italy at some point during the 1580s. Most likely he first went to Venice where he probably studied with Lodewijk Toeput (called Il Pozzoserrato) before going to Rome where he has been identified as working in the church of S. Vitale in Rome. The transalpine journey to Italy was to have a long lasting effect upon the young artist, and not until the 1620s was he to expand his oeuvre, adding Walloon landscapes and village scenes to his production. Indeed some of his panels have an overtly Swiss flavour; see, for example, the depiction of the great Swiss national hero William Tell in his Alpine landscape with William Tell shooting at the apple¹ in the collection of Raimond Gregoire, Les Loges en Josas. The numerous mountainous landscapes and their popularity were to earn De Momper the moniker 'Pictor Montium' in Sir Anthony van Dyck's Iconographica (circa 1632-44).

Momper must have returned to Antwerp before 1590 where he is listed as marrying Elisabeth Gobyn. Upon his return he immediately achieved financial success, and attracted powerful patrons such as Archduke Ernest of the Netherlands. Indeed the success of his early career is illustrated by his ability to buy the house 'De Vliegende Os' on the Vaarplaats in 1596, and by the praise lavished on his skill for 'painting landscapes excellently with a clever technique' in Karel van Mander's Het Schilderboeck of 1604. Unfortunately this early success was not mirrored in the later years of his career when he was reduced to trading pictures for wine at the 'De Robijn' tavern in Antwerp before his death in 1635. Ertz proposes a dating of 1600-10, a decade which produced many of Momper's best and highest quality works, when this beacon of mannerist landscape painting was at the height of his fame.²  Ertz also proposes the figures to be by Jan Brueghel the Elder who. like Sebastian Vrancx, was a close family friend and long term staffage painter for De Momper.

 

1. K. Ertz, under Literature, p.484, cat. no. 80*, reproduced.
2. Idem., pp.147-8 & 504-5, cat. no. 147.