Jan Brueghel the Younger

With Galerie de Heuvel, Brussels, by 1926;

Acquired from the above by Baron Coppée in 1926 (as by Jan Brueghel the Elder);

Thence by descent.

Brussels, Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Exposition rétrospective du paysage flamand (XVI^e, XVII^e, XVIII^e siècles), 1926, no. 78 (as by Jan Brueghel the Elder);

Amsterdam, Kunsthandel P. de Boer, De helsche en de fluwelen Brueghel en hun invloed op de kunst in de Nederlanden, 10 February – 26 March 1934, no. 52 (as by Jan Brueghel the Elder);

Worcester, Worcester Art Museum, 23 February – 12 March 1939 and Philadelphia, Philadelphia Museum of Art, John G. Johnson Collection, 25 March – 26 April 1939, The Worcester Philadelphia exhibition of Flemish painting, no. 114 (as by Jan Brueghel the Elder);

Tokyo, Fuji Art Museum, The Seventeenth Century. The Golden Age of Flemish Painting, 9 April – 26 June 1988, no. 8 (as by Jan Brueghel the Elder);

Tokyo, Tobu Museum of Art, The World of Bruegel. The Coppée Collection and Eleven International Museums, 29 March – 25 June 1995, no. B35 (as by Jan Brueghel the Elder or Jan Brueghel the Younger).

Y. Thiery, Le paysage flamand au XVII^e siècle. Des precurseurs a Rubens, Brussels 1953, p. 177, reproduced fig. 46 (as by Jan Brueghel the Elder);

M. Eemans, Jan Brueghel, Brussel 1964, reproduced fig. 10 (as by Jan Brueghel the Elder);

K. Ertz, Jan Brueghel der Ältere (1568–1625). Die Gemalde mit kritischem Oeuvre Katalog, Cologne 1979, pp. 189 and 524, note 208 (as Jan Brueghel the Younger[?]);

K. Ertz, Jan Brueghel the Younger (1601–1678). The Paintings with Oeuvre Catalogue, Freren 1984, pp. 43 and 194, cat. no. 12, reproduced;

Y. Thiery, Les Peintres Flamands de Paysage aux XVII^e siècle. Des précurseurs à Rubens, Brussels 1986, p. 206;

S. Leclercq et al., La Collection Coppée, Liège 1991, p. 72, reproduced p. 73 (as Jan Brueghel the Elder or Jan Brueghel the Younger);

M. Wilmotte, in the catalogue of the exhibition The World of Bruegel. The Coppée Collection and Eleven International Museums, Tokyo 1995, p. 126, no. B35, reproduced (as Jan Brueghel the Elder or Jan Brueghel the Younger).

The following condition report is provided by Hamish Dewar who is an external specialist and not an employee of Sotheby's: Structural Condition There is a horizontal line of structural inserts on the reverse of the panel applied to secure a horizontal join or split in the panel. This has successfully ensured overall structural stability. There is a very slight bow on the upper edge of the panel and it would be advisable to fit the panel more securely into the frame. Paint Surface The paint surface has a reasonably even varnish layer and there is a faint pattern of drying craquelure which is entirely stable and is not visually distracting. Inspection under ultra-violet light shows a horizontal line of inpainting along the panel join mentioned above. This retouching is at its widest in the pale tones of the sky on the left of the composition. There are also small retouchings around the framing edges and in the upper left and lower right corners. There are other very small scattered areas of inpainting including a very thin diagonal line just above the lower horizontal framing edge which is approximately 3 cm in length and is just beneath the two standing cows in the foreground. Inspection under ulltra-violet light also shows areas layers of older discoloured varnish suggesting that the painting has been selectively cleaned in the past and it may be that there are other retouchings beneath the old varnish layers that are not identifiable under ultra-violet light. It is encouraging to note that the fine details of the painting appear to be intact with little evidence of over-cleaning or abrasion in the past. Summary The painting would therefore appear to be in very good and stable condition and no further work is required.
"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 beautiful river scene was bought by Baron Coppée in 1926 as the work of Jan Brueghel the Elder, and exhibited as such for over fifty years thereafter. Klaus Ertz was the first to suggest that it might be the work of Jan Breughel the Younger, and subsequently included it in his monograph on the artist published in 1984. In his earlier catalogue of the works of Jan Brueghel the Elder, he had included it among a small group of four paintings, all once attributed to Jan Brueghel the Elder, which combine a river landscape on the left of the composition with a forested path on the right hand side.¹ No prototype for such a composition by Jan Brueghel the Elder from which the Coppée and other panels might derive has, however, survived. The Coppée version Ertz considered much the best of the group and speculated that its design was entirely due to the younger Brueghel, while the other examples he considered as the work of anonymous followers. The general mise-en-scène may owe its origins to a drawing by the Elder of around 1605, today in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam but in general, its design is composed from a variety of different elements taken from more than one of his landscape paintings. The crouching huntsman at the riverbank is, for example, taken from a figure in the famous Landscape with a bittern hunter of 1605 today in the Gemäldegalerie in Dresden.² The cattle and wayfarers who populate the river bank can be paralleled in several different forest landscapes or village scenes by Brueghel dating from around 1610.

The indistinct date on the present panel has been read as 1613 in the past, and this would support the traditional attribution to Jan Brueghel the Elder, for at this date his son was a mere twelve years old. The signature form on the present panel: (BRV)EGHEL, which is contemporary, is similarly that used by the father in his works of this period. A more plausible reading might therefore be 1618, from the period before Jan Brueghel the Younger’s departure for Italy and when his work would most closely have reflected that of his father. Ertz later seemingly overlooked the question of the date, and suggested a dating for the Coppée panel to the 1630s, by which time Jan Brueghel the Younger had returned and taken over the family studio. He did, however, group the Coppée panel among a small number of paintings by Jan Brueghel the Younger, in which a similarly correct signature form taken from his father is used.³ The other examples are in Florence, Gallerie degli Uffizi, dated 1607; Kassel, Schloss Wilhelmshöhe, dated 1609; Paris, Louvre, dated 1610, and the latest in Munich, Alte Pinakothek, which is from 1621. 

 

1. See Ertz under Literature, 1979, p. 524, n. 208. The others are in Darmstadt, Hessisches Landesmuseum (inv. no. GK170); a miniature (10 x 14 cm.) in Brussels, Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts (inv. no. 6594), and in Krakow, Muzeum Narodowego w Krakowie.

2. Reproduced in K. Ertz, op. cit., 1979, pp. 64, 576, no. 113, fig. 35.

3. Ertz, op. cit., 1984, p. 43, and cat. nos 3, 68, 72 and 168.