Jan Breughel the Younger

Sale, Paris, Piasa, 17 December 2003, lot 15, for 265,000 euros (hammer).

The following condition report is provided by Sarah Walden who is an external specialist and not an employee of Sotheby's: Jan Brueghel the Younger. Still Life of Flowers in a Basket. This painting is on a panel which has been fairly recently thinned and cradled. A rather older restoration appears to have been slightly reprised at the time of the cradling when some cracks and joints were further secured. A recent revarnishing has apparently adjusted one or two minor surface retouchings. There appears to be two joints, with the section of the panel at the base being particularly stable. There is a line of old retouching running right across, through the flowers, but in a slight slant of which part must be connected with the central joint. An upper joint can be partially traced under ultra violet light, as can one or two cracks from the right side. The lovely finish of the still life in all its delicate brushwork has remained remarkably intact. The single line of retouching along the crack/joint running through the flowers is not very recent and is still quite well integrated. The beautiful state of the surrounding basketful of flowers is clearly immediately exceptional. There are a few scattered little retouchings from the past just visible in the background mainly near the edges and along by the base ledge. Rather more recent retouching along the cracks and joints is visible under ultra violet light amid the opaque older varnish elsewhere. The very few recent retouchings are also in the background: by the butterfly at upper centre left and near the two upper central tulips, with a little older retouching also on the centre of the ledge. Wisely there have not been radical interventions whenever the movement of the panel needed to be stabilised, so that the paint has remained in a finely preserved unworn condition. This report was not done under laboratory conditions.
"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 is a simplified version of a subject and composition treated on several occasions by Jan Brueghel the Younger and is probably the most independent and inventive of the group given that errs from the example set by his teacher and father, Jan Brueghel the Elder. In it a cacophany of colourful blooms explode from an amply sized basket; lily-of-the-valley, yellow ranunculus, cornflowers, an iris, pink roses and pert striated tulips which reach skywards towards both upper corners of the composition. Common to several of the other versions are the large pink rose in the centre, which anchors the arrangement, the group of small flowers emanating from the left edge of the basket, and the lilac that climbs out of the basket before drooping over the frontal stone ledge. Where this painting differs, however, is in the iris and three striated tulips in the upper right which here balance the arrangement on the opposing side. In all other versions these are not required as Brueghel achieves his compositional balance by placing a gilt tazza filled with smaller blooms slightly behind and to the right of the basket. An example of this latter compositional type is the work of the same dimensions formerly in the Aardenne collection, Dordrecht;¹ another version was sold in these Rooms, 14 December 2000, lot 10, for £190,000 (hammer). 

1. See K. Ertz, Jan Brueghel the Younger, Freren 1984, pp. 450–51, cat. no. 287, reproduced.