Attributed to Jan Brueghel the Elder

Cassans Collection (according to an old label on the reverse);
Sir Thomas Fermor-Hesketh, 8th Bt. (1881-1944), Rufford New Hall, Lancashire, where it hung at the base of The Staircase (fig. 1);
Thence by descent to Frederick, 2nd Baron Hesketh (1916-1955), Easton Neston, Northamptonshire, where it hung in the Small Sitting Room and later in The Garden Hall (fig. 2);
Thence by family descent.

Philips & MacConnal, 25, Castle Street, Liverpool, An Inventory of Contents of Rufford Hall, Lancashire, July 1917, typed document (Family Archive), 'a landscape by Breughel';
Anon Compiler, An Inventory of the Mansion and Contents, Easton Neston House, Towcester, February 1927, typed document (Family Archive), where listed in the 'Small Drawing Room, no. 3, Twelve small oil paintings including Breughel - £750' ;
H. Avray Tipping, 'Easton Neston, Northamptonshire, The Seat of Sir Thomas Fermor-Hesketh, Bt.', in Country Life, Volume  LX11, 27 August, 1927, p. 302, fig. 12, where illustrated hanging in the Little Drawing Room.

"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 bevelled oak panel, which is entirely flat, with a fine even craquelure. Much of the detail is beautifully crisp and intact, including the little landscape at upper left above the cliff, the trees on the left below and the foreground figures. There is a little thinness in the rigging on the right with a rubbed patch at the top of the sail where there is a smudge of old retouching running into the sea, with another old surface retouching on the distant horizon. The central trees have also been superficially strengthened, and the two base corners have a few minor little retouchings. The old retouching is scarcely visible under ultra violet light through the rather dim old varnish, with just two little more recent retouchings to be seen near the right base edge on the shore and by the head of the pony pulling a cart by the left edge. The far distance generally, including the little village on the coast in the centre is rather faint, but elsewhere many areas are finely 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."

This tiny panel, in which a group of fishermen are shown unloading their catch onto a rocky shore, compares extremely closely with the earliest landscapes by Jan Brueghel the Elder. Indeed it is with Brueghel's coastal landscape of 1595, now in the Girardet collection and executed towards the end of his stay in Rome (and lot 10 in this sale), with which the present panel bears the most striking resemblance. Of particular note in this regard are two of the figure groups, which both recur in the Girardet panel: the two fishermen in the central foreground, one seated on an upturned basket, the other on a barrel, recur in the central foreground of the Girardet panel; and the figures unloading the boat to the right recur in the foremost boat in the Girardet picture. The execution of the landscape and figures, less refined than those of the Girardet work and other works from circa 1595, may be likened to the panel Klaus Ertz lists as the artist's earliest work, of circa 1592, the Coastal landscape in a German private collection, which is on a panel of very similar dimensions to the present work.¹

A note on the provenance:

This panel is recorded at Rufford Hall in 1917 which suggests the painting was probably purchased by Sir Thomas Fermor-Hesketh and his young wife, Florence, whom he married in 1909.  Together, the young couple were responsible for building a large and distinguished collection of paintings, furniture and works of art.   Contemporary photographs of Rufford New Hall demonstrate their passion. (fig 1). Sir Thomas saw service during the First World War, afterwards became M.P. for Enfield, and was later ennobled for services to the Conservative Party, becoming Baron Hesketh in 1935.  The post war period saw the creation of Easton Neston as it appears today.  Lord Thomas put a huge amount of energy and enthusiasm into transforming the interior and garden, enriching the collection and rehanging the pictures to greater effect.  The present lot was moved from Rufford to hang in the Small Sitting Room which Lord Thomas created as a cabinet room for the Old Master Paintings.


1. See K. Ertz, Jan Brueghel der Ältere, Cologne 1979, p. 557, cat. no. 1, reproduced fig. 85.