老楊·布呂赫爾

The Vischer-Sarasin family, Basel;
The Estate of Maria Sarasin, 1908, according to a label on the reverse;
Anonymous sale, Zurich, Koller, 18 March 2008, lot 3029, where acquired by the present owner.

K. Ertz, Jan Brueghel der Ältere (1568–1625), Lingen 2008–10, vol. II, pp. 634–36, no. 303, reproduced. 

The following condition report is provided by Hamish Dewar who is an external specialist and not an employee of Sotheby's: Structural Condition The copper panel is even and secure and structurally sound. Paint Surface The paint surface has a reasonably even but slightly discoloured varnish layer. Inspection under ultra-violet light shows only small scattered retouchings, including a diagonal line, approximately 2 cm in length in the trees in the centre of the composition, and small spots in the lower left and lower right corners. There are also very small retouchings around the framing edges and there may be other retouchings beneath old opaque varnish layers which are not identifiable under ultra-violet light. Summary The painting would therefore appear to be in good and stable condition and should respond well to cleaning and revarnishing should this be 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."

Klaus Ertz dates this painting to the beginning of the 1590s, when Brueghel was in Rome, although he raises the possibility that it might have been painted slightly earlier, just before the artist left Flanders. The luminous handling of the foliage and the tree trunk is however entirely consistent with Brueghel's work in Rome in the early 1590s. The influence of Gillis van Coninxloo's forest landscapes is palpable in this and Brueghel's other woodland settings. Brueghel may have met Coninxloo in Frankenthal when he was en route from Antwerp to Italy.  In many of Jan Brueghel's narrative subjects set in wooded landscapes from later in the 1590, the figures are painted by other artists, for example Hans Rottenhammer, with whom Brueghel worked from about 1595 onwards, but at the start of the decade he had yet to develop contacts with such collaborators.  The wooded landscape and the foliage in the present work, as well as the figure type and the hound are notably similar to other early wooded landscapes with hunting scenes on copper, such as the one in Schloss Ambras, Innsbruck, a wooded landscape with a stag hunt dated by Ertz circa 1593.¹  

Saint Hubert, Bishop of Maastricht and later Liège in the early eighth century, had in his younger days been confronted by a stag with a crucifix between its antlers while out hunting. This brought about his conversion to Christianity. He is patron saint of hunters, and as here is clad in hunter's clothes. The subject is very similar to the Vision of Saint Eustace, but the latter is generally shown wearing armour.

1.Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum (inv. no. 458), on long-term loan to Schloss Ambras; see K. Ertz, Jan Brueghel der Ältere 1569-1625, vol. I, Lingen 2008, p. 194, no. 75, reproduced. For autograph variants also dated by Ertz to the same period, see pp. 196-202, nos. 77 - 80, all reproduced.