Jan Brueghel the Younger Antwerp 1601 – 1678 and Studio of Sir Peter Paul Rubens Siegen 1577 - 1640 Antwerp

Fockema Collection, Amsterdam;

Georges Moortkamers, Antwerp.

The following condition report is provided by Hamish Dewar who is an external specialist and not an employee of Sotheby's: Structural Condition The panel has been cradled and has a slight warp which could ideally be more securely secured within the frame. There is a very fine horizontal split running in from the right vertical framing edge, approximately 14 cm above the lower horizontal framing edge. There are other slight hairline cracks running in from both vertical framing edges. There are faint traces of two horizontal panel joins or splits each approximately 14 cm below and above the respective horizontal framing edges. Paint Surface The paint surface has a very discoloured varnish layer and cleaning would result in a considerable colour change and a great improvement in the overall appearance. Inspection under ultra violet light confirms how discoloured the varnish layers have become and the only retouchings that clearly fluoresce are very thin vertical lines running through the figures on the left of the composition and other very small spots and lines. There are faint traces of other older retouchings beneath the discoloured and opaque varnish layers and there may be other retouchings which are not identifiable under ultra violet light. Summary The painting would therefore appear to be in good and reasonably stable condition and should respond very well to cleaning, restoration and revarnishing.
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This painting belongs to a tradition of mythological hunting scenes established in Antwerp by Jan Brueghel the Elder and Sir Peter Paul Rubens around 1620. Some twenty paintings by Brueghel and Rubens representing episodes of Diana and her Nymphs Hunting are recorded, including three works intended for the Infanta Isabel Clara Eugenia, for Tervuren Castle.

The present painting however is a characteristic work by Jan Brueghel the Younger, who upon his return from his second trip to Italy in August 1625, took over the running of the family workshop, following the death of his father from a cholera epidemic earlier that year. The handling does not reveal the same shimmering, nervous line of his father, but the close observation and detailed rendering of the still life elements would indicate an early dating to soon after his father’s death, towards the end of the 1620s.

The overall mise-en-scène is inspired by two earlier treatments of the subject by Jan Brueghel the Elder and Rubens: A painting, now in the Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature, Paris¹ has the same landscape setting, a similar, although re-arranged figure group (by the hand of Rubens himself); it differs markedly however in the inclusion of a pack of hounds, almost certainly belonging to the Infanta herself, in place of the hunting still life in the present version. The second related painting is a treatment of the subject now in the Alte Pinakothek, Munich²  in which the landscape setting, the background and the figure group (given to Frans Wouter) are almost identical; the selection of game and hunting accoutrement however is once again different. Indeed that in the present work appears to be entirely of the Younger Brueghel’s design and unique to this version.

Evidence suggests that the most collaborative works began their existence in the Rubens’ studio. Panels were supplied from local Antwerp panel makers. They were primed, the figures painted in and the paintings subsequently delivered to the Brueghel  workshop for completion of the landscape and still life elements (see for example Rubens and the Younger Brueghel’s Landscape with Pan and Syrinx sold in these Rooms, 5 July 1995, lot 42). In this instance however the figures appear to have been painted second. This is perhaps a reflection of the nature of the commission itself, for whereas the staffage is by a hand from within the Rubens’ studio, although possibly ‘retouched’ by the master before leaving the studio, the entire landscape and still life elements appear to be by Jan Brueghel the Younger himself.

1. See K. Ertz and C.N. Ertz, Jan Brueghel der Ältere, vol. II, Lingen 2008-2010, pp. 724-725, cat. no. 355, reproduced.
2. See Ertz, op. cit., vol. II, pp. 725-726, cat. no. 355/1, reproduced.