Jan Breughel the Younger

Anonymous sale, Berlin, Lepke, 29 March 1926, lot 135;
Bought by the grandfather of the present owner in the 1930s.

K. Ertz, Jan Breughel the Younger (1601-1678), Freren 1984, p. 392, no. 230, as possibly by Jan Brueghel the Younger.

The actual painting is softer and less red in tone than the actual painting suggests. The panel consists of three planks joined horizontally and has a slight convex bow. There's a horizontal repaired and retouched split of approx. 20 cm. above the upper join, running from the right edge. The paint surface is in fair condition, if a little thin in the sky and in the brown tones. The figures appear nicely preserved. The paint surface is under a fairly clear varnish. Areas of retouching are visible to the naked eye in the red table cloth, in the sky and smoke, and in the pillars. Inspection under UV light reveals additional scattered retouchings in the sky, in the putti and in the ruins, as well as additional strengthening in the birds and in the still life. Offered in a decorative carved gilt wood frame with a few chips.
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Klaus Ertz was the first to suggest that this painting is by Jan Breughel the Younger. He catalogued this picture from an old photograph, hence his caution. It is a version with very few changes of a better-known painting by Jan Breughel in Altenburg, Lindenau Museum. Another version was in a sale with Fischer, Lucerne, 16-22 June 1959, lot 2359.¹ At the time of the 1926 sale in Berlin, the figures in the present work were attributed to Hendrick van Balen (1573 -1632), but as Ertz points out, they are more probably from the circle or following of Peter Paul Rubens. 

Given its close relationship to other allegories such as the Allegories of War and the Topsy-Turvy World Allegories, which can be dated in the 1640s,² the present painting must be placed in this same era. More specifically, these types of allegories can be viewed as interpretations of the intellectual and political landscape of the late 1640s, especially in relationship to the Treaty of Münster in 1648. In this allegory of discord we see positive and negative elements of humanity combined; Venus and Amor show the positive side in their embrace, the fighting putti, the weapons and distant battle scenes reveal the negative side. While Breughel is much indebted to his father in most of his works, in these later allegories he reveals himself to be capable of true originality and Ertz rightly emphasises the young Breughel's individual quality.³

1. See K. Ertz, under Literature, pp. 391-2, cat. nos. 228-9.
2. op.cit., pp. 387-90, cat. nos. 223-6.
3. op.cit., pp. 69-70.