Jan Brueghel the Elder

Private Collection, France;
Anonymous sale, Paris, Tajan, 24 June 2004, lot 14, where acquired by the present owner. 

"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 copper panel which has the edges protected behind with a supporting wooden frame. The fairly recent restoration has left a certain amount of older varnish on the central dark background surrounding the figure, where there is older retouching. The distant landscape and the trees against the sky are beautifully intact, as are all the minutely detailed flora and fauna, sometimes gleaming among the dark foliage. There are a few little recent retouchings: minor touches occasionally in the sky and water, one retouching at the base of the tree trunk on the left, a little retouching at the top of St. Margaret's skirt and a few under the tail of the dragon, but these are minimal. The dragon itself is well preserved, and there is scarcely any retouching in any of the key areas. Essentially, although the dark background around the figure has wider old retouching perhaps over minute past decayed crackle, all the main elements in the painting are in fine, glowing, unworn condition. 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."

The son of the famous painter Pieter Brueghel the Elder, Jan Brueghel, moved with his brother Pieter Brueghel the Younger and his sister Maria to live with their grandmother Mayken Verhulst (the widow of Pieter Coecke van Aelst) following the death of their mother in 1578. Karel van Mander records it was his grandmother that provided the young Brueghel with his first training before going to study with Pieter Goetkindt. In 1589 the young Brueghel travelled to Italy, via Cologne. He was in Naples in 1590 and from 1592-4 he lived in Rome under the patronage of Cardinal Ascanio Colonna before travelling to Milan where he was to work under the patronage of his lifelong patron Cardinal Federico Borromeo, He returned to Antwerp in October 1596. It was during this sojourn in Italy that Ertz places this picture, proposing a dating of circa 1595. After Brueghel's return from Italy the rise in his career was meteoric, in 1601 he was appointed subdeacon of the Guild of Saint Luke, and in 1602 he was appointed dean and in 1609 he was called to the court of Archduke Albert VII of Austria (1559-1621) the Hapsburg regents of the Netherlands.

 

This painting is accompanied by the cerificate of Dr. Klaus Ertz, dated 1 June 2004, endorsing the attribution to Jan Brueghel the Elder. Ertz will include the painting in his forthcoming revised catalogue raisonné on the artist, the first volume of which is due to be published at the end of 2008. He compares the present painting to the Landscape with Saint Fulgentius in the Kunsthistoriches Museum, Vienna, for which he suggests a similar dating¹. Until the sale of the painting in 2004 the picture was unrecorded, and the composition was only known through a workshop replica in the Museo Civico, Cremona.

 

1. K. Ertz, Jan Brueghel der ältere, Cologne 1979, p. 560, cat. no. 19 reproduced plate 106.