Paul Bril

With Julius H. Weitzner, New York, from whom acquired by the Museo de Arte de Ponce in 1961 (accession no. 61.0173).

Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña, August 1961, no. 17;
New York, IBM Gallery, 1963;
Ponce, Museo de Arte de Ponce, Vistas y Paisajes del Museo de Arte de Ponce, 1994, no. 1;
Hato Rey, Puerto Rico, Chase Manhattan Bank, June - September 1994;
The National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo, Claude Lorrain and the Ideal Landscape, 15 September-6 December 1998, no. 4;
Ponce, Museo de Arte de Ponce, 100 Masterpieces, 2002, p. 86-7.

J.S. Held, Ponce Art Museum. Paintings of the European and American schools, Ponce 1965, pp. 20-21, reproduced fig. 48;
J.S. Held et al., Museo de Arte de Ponce, Ponce 1984, p. 136, reproduced;
M. Roethlisberger, Claude Lorrain and the Ideal Landscape, exhibition catalogue, Tokyo 1998, p. 37, n. 4;
F. Cappelletti, Paul Bril e la pittura di paesaggio a Roma 1580-1630, Rome 2005-6, p. 296, no. 149, reproduced.

The tone of the original is slightly less blue in the sky upper right than it appears in the catalogue illustration. The canvas has been relined and has been somewhat flattened as a result. The paint surface is secure, if a little thin, particularly in the darks, under a slightly yellowed varnish. Inspection under UV light is hampered by the varnish but scattered old minor retouchings do fluoresce along the margins. There is an area of uneven varnish to the right of the grey horse, visible under UV but not to the naked eye, but this does not appear to conceal any damage. Overall the original details of the painting appear to be well preserved. Offered in an ornate carved gilt wood frame in good condition.
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This is a late work by Bril, executed in 1620, and it marks the culmination of nearly four decades in Rome. Bril is first recorded in Rome in 1582, when he is mentioned as a member of the Accademia di San Luca and in 1620, the year in which he painted this work, he was elected its principal. Bril's formative years in Rome, until circa 1605, are marked by a very particular, refined and highly detailed style that he shared with other northerners in the city such as Jan Brueghel the Elder and Adam Elsheimer, while his later works manifest more and more the influence of his Italian contemporaries such as Annibale Carracci. Gone are the jagged cliffs and imaginary landscapes, replaced by more believable undulating vistas.

Although the majority of Bril's later works are undated the present work accords well with the few other dated landscapes from around this time, such as the canvas sold in these Rooms, 21 April 2005, lot 6 (1621), while also comparing favourably with those works dated by scholars to the same period, such as the Landscape with hunters in the Galleria Doria Pamphilij, Rome (circa 1620).¹  Through the ensuing decade Bril's style would harmonize all the more with that of his Roman peers, especially after 1621 when, alongside Domenichino, Guercino and Viola, he worked on the lunettes of the Stanza dei Paesi in the Casino Ludovisi.

1.  See F. Cappelletti, under Literature, p. 294, no. 145, reproduced.