* Pieter Brueghel the Younger Brussels 1564-1637/8 Antwerp

The appearance on the market of the present work, signed P. BRVEGH_L and indistinctly dated 16 - -, represents an important addition to the published oeuvre of Pieter Brueghel the Younger.  There were only two previously accepted works of this subject by Pieter Brueghel the Younger of this subject,  the first in a private collection (signed `BR.EL' on top of the trough )and the second a version signed with monogram in the Historisches Museum, Bramberg.  The popularity of the composition has long been attested to by the number of known workshop versions and later engravings.  Both treatments derive from one of his father's, Pieter Brueghel, the Elder's most popular moralizing compositions, previously in the collection of the Chevalier Stanislas van Outryve d'Ydewalle until sold at Christie's, London, July 10, 2002, lot 3.  The  present work differs only slightly in both size and conception from the Ydewalle panel. 

Pieter Brueghel the Elder's composition was known for many years only from the engravings by or after Jan Wierix (1549-1618) and from the painted versions, including the present work, by Pieter Brueghel, the Younger and other versions produced by his workshop.  For discussion of the other variants attributed to Pieter Brueghel the younger and his workshop see K. Ertz, Pieter Brueghel der Jüngere, Lingen 1998, pp. 207-208.  The wide dissemination of Jan Wierix's engraving, which dates to 1568, is attested to by the number of publisher's names found on its various states.  First issued by Martinus Petri, called Merten Peeters van Ghelle, versions are also recorded by C.J. Visscher and P. Goos.  Wierix's engraving was mostly likely made directly from the original since the compositions are almost identical.  Like Wierix's engravings, Brueghel the Younger's two versions after his father's picture suggest that he knew the original.  The palette employed is identical and the placement of the signature in the present work is also in the same place as in the Ydewalle picture.  Although there is no certainty that he saw his father's picture, four paintings by Pieter Brueghel the Elder are recorded in the estate inventory of Gillis van Coninxloo II (1544-1606), Brueghel the Younger's uncle and master, (see N. de Roever, `De Coninxloo's', Oud Holland, iii, 1885, pp. 33-35) , including one with the description `Een Stuck daet Varcken in't Cot moet', a title very close to the Visscher engraving (`T'Varcken moet in t'schot' [a picture in which the pig must go into the stall]). If the prime version did indeed belong to Gillis van Coninxloo Breughel the Younger would have been able to study it in person.

The themes of drunkenness, gluttony and lust are all referred to in the iconography of this picture.  The engraving produced by Visscher was entitled `The Pig Must go into the Stall' but the proverb underneath the title reads `Die haer goet als drincken Swynen/ Brengen door in Venus Kott/ Moeten nae elendich quynen/ Endelyck int Varkenschott [Those who, like drunken pigs, waste their rime and good in the house of Venus, will in the end have to be pushed, after miserable decay into the pigsty]'.  Long associated with connotations of alcoholic and gastronomic excess, the pig as a motif also carries overtones of sexual laciviousness.  Brueghel somewhat humorously asks the viewer to laugh at the drunken "swine" and contemplate on the folly of humanity.