Lot 15
  • 15

Studio of Jan Breughel the Younger

Estimate
60,000 - 80,000 GBP
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Description

  • Jan Breughel the Younger
  • A Kunstkammer with Venus
  • oil on oak panel
  • 59cm by 88cm

Provenance

With Sam Hartveld, Antwerp (according to Balis, Literature 1986, below);

Acquired by Baron Coppée in 1939;

Thence by descent.

 

Exhibited

Tokyo, Fuji Art Museum, The Seventeenth Century. The Golden Age of Flemish Painting, 9 April – 26 June 1988, no. 42 (as Jan van Kessel);

Tokyo, Tobu Museum of Art, The World of Bruegel. The Coppée Collection and Eleven International Museums, 29 March – 25 June 1995, no. F32 (as by Jan van Kessel the Elder).

 

Literature

S. Speth-Holterhoff, Les peintres flamands de cabinets d'amateurs au XVIIe siècle, Brussels 1957, pp. 124–25, reproduced fig. 50.

K. Ertz, Jan Brueghel the Younger (1601–1678). The Paintings with Oeuvre Catalogue, Freren 1984, p. 348–49, under cat. no. 183 (as a copy);

A. Balis, Corpus Rubenianum Ludwig Burchard XVIII. Hunting Scenes, New York 1986, vol. II, pp. 116 and 118, n. 3 (with incorrect dimensions), reproduced fig. 44 (with Venus clothed);

S. Leclercq et al., La Collection Coppée, Liège 1991, p. 100, reproduced p.101 (as attributed to Jan van Kessel the Elder);

M. Wilmotte, in the catalogue of the exhibition The World of Bruegel. The Coppée Collection and Eleven International Museums, Tokyo 1995, p.216, no. F43, reproduced p. 215.

Condition

The panel is flat and stable. It is held by four vertical batons on the reverse. The painting has fairly recently been cleaned and restored. The picture surface is in very good condition with no signs of wear and no major damages. Inspection under UV light reveals only minor touchings out along the lower panel join and some old repaired hairline splits running parallel 1cm from the lower margin. There are some retoucings to the body and robe of Venus (?) and there are some further retoucings in the sky above the distant view of Antwerp. The varnish is clear and even. Offered in a modern ebonised wood frame with gilt sight edge in fair condition with some minor chips.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

Catalogue Note

The composition follows that of a signed panel by Jan Brueghel the Younger of very similar dimensions in the John G. Johnson Collection in the Philadelphia Museum of Art.1 Another version by Brueghel was sold in these Rooms, 10 July 2002, lot 48 (£170,000). Ertz, who did not know the latter picture, observed the Philadelphia painting's evident debt to Jan Brueghel the Elder and Sir Peter Paul Rubens’ famous cycle of the The Five Senses, and in particular that of Sight and Touch, all painted in 1617 and now in the Prado in Madrid. Jan Brueghel the Younger, however, greatly altered his father's original design, and seems to have been responsible for the present form of the Collector’s Gallery and its setting in a loggia overlooking the River Scheldt with Antwerp in the distance. The design evidently enjoyed some popularity, for it was reprised in other Antwerp studios, perhaps in collaboration with the Brueghel workshop. For example, a version signed and dated 1659 by Jan van Kessel, an artist to whom this work has been attributed in the past, was recorded by Walther Bernt and is now in the Staatliche Kunsthalle in Karlsruhe.2 Another, with different figures and paintings, was sold in these Rooms, 17 December 1998, lot 116. Gregory Martin has argued that the latter and other such works were probably the result of a collaboration between several Antwerp studios.The figures in all the versions have variously been optimistically attributed to Frans Francken, Hendrick van Balen and Abraham Willemsen, but it seems likely that they were the work of as yet unidentified figure specialists or workshops.

In the present scene, a naked female figure holds up a mirror in the centre of the collector’s cabinet. The presence of Cupid at her side suggests that she may have been intended as Venus, but she could also be taken as a personification of Vanity, or of the Sense of Sight. The drapes with which a later restorer spared her blushes (see fig. 1) have now been removed. Around her stand an array of paintings and works of art. On the table to the right of the figures is a Rape of the Sabines after Giambologna, with four other casts of works by the sculptor set along a shelf at the back of the room, representing Nessus and Deianeira, Hercules slaying Nessus, a Lion attacking a Bull and A Lion attacking a Horse. On the shelf beneath are a series of busts of Roman Emperors and to the right by the loggia the antique sculpture known as the Thusnelda. In the foreground are a series of paintings: from right to left : The Garden of Eden by Jan Brueghel the Elder, a Diana and Actaeon and a Christ healing the Blind, both unidentified. Hung high on the wall is a double portrait of Philip IV and Queen Isabella of Spain after Rubens, and to the left Rubens’ Wild Boar Hunt now in the Museum in Marseilles. Beneath this is a Still-life by Frans Snyders and to its left a portrait of the Cardinal Infante Ferdinand, again based on a Rubens, this time in the Alte Pinakothek in Munich. In the upper left corner hangs a still-life of flowers in the style of Jan van Kessel. A sculpture gallery can be glimpsed in a barrel-vaulted room beyond. Various precious trinkets, including shells, coins and astronomical devices, drawings and a nautilus cup litter the foreground, where a monkey is posing as a connoisseur.

 

 

 

1. See Ertz, under Literature 1984, pp. 348–49, cat. no. 183, reproduced.

2. See W. Bernt, The Netherlandish Painters of the Seventeenth Century, Munich 1970, vol. II, no. 615, reproduced.

3. G. Martin, 'Abraham Willemsens (again): More news of attributions in Flemish painting’, in Apollo, February 1993, pp. 99–101.