Pieter Brueghel the Younger

Anonymous sale, Berlin, Hans W. Lange, 27-29 January 1943, lot 14 (with two other panels);
There purchased by Dr Günther Quandt, Berlin;
Confiscated by American forces from the above at Haus Waldschloss near Baden-Baden, March 1945;
Centre de rassemblement artistique de Baden-Baden, 1945, nos.1320 A-C;
Stichting Nederlandsch Kunstbezit, 1946, inventory no. 2326 (remitted by the above);
Centre de rassemblement artistique de Baden-Baden, 1946 (returned by the above after the SNK failed to establish that the panels had been in Dutch ownership before 1943);
Dr. Günther Quandt, Baden-Baden (restituted by the above);
By descent to Dr. Herbert Quandt, Frankfurt-am-Main;
By whom sold, Cologne, Lempertz, 14 March 1963, lot 59 (with two other panels), to P. de Boer;
With Kunsthandel P. de Boer, Amsterdam;
Alfred Brod, 1963.

Amsterdam, Kunsthandel P. de Boer, Catalogue of Old Pictures, May - June 1963, no. 12;
London, Alfred Brod Gallery, Annual Autumn Exhibition of Paintings of Old Dutch and Flemish Masters, 17 October - 16 November 1963, no. 38;
Providence, 1964, nos. 2-4;
New York, Finch College, 1966, nos. 3-5;
New Orleans 1997, nos. 7-9;
Baltimore 1999, no. 10a-c.

G. Marlier, Pierre Bruegel le Jeune, Brussels 1969, pp. 421-422, c-e, reproduced figs. 268-270;
New Orleans 1997, pp. 18-23, cat. nos. 7-9, reproduced;
Baltimore 1999, pp. 24-27, reproduced;
K. Ertz, Pieter Brueghel der Jüngere, Lingen 1998/2000, vol. II, p. 823, cat. nos. 1112-1114, reproduced p. 802, figs. 640-642.

The following condition report has been provided by Simon Parkes of Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc. 502 East 74th St. New York, NY 212-734-3920, simonparkes@msn.com, an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. These three paintings have not been recently cleaned and are visibly dirty. All are painted on oak panels that have been cradled. They are all in similarly well preserved condition. "Two Peasant Couples" shows a faintly visible crack running through the heads of the primary figures, but this is not giving rise to any paint loss or instability. In "Two Monks in Front of an Inn," there is a small crack in the lower right that needs to be addressed. All three works should be cleaned and varnished, and it does not seem any significant retouches would 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."

These three charming vignettes of peasant life have been dated by Klaus Ertz to the first decade of the 17^th century.  They were together with two other panels depicting Peasants Dancing and Drunken Peasant Being Led Home by his Wife, in a 1943 Berlin auction and, again, in a 1963 Cologne sale (fig. 1).¹  The small size and oblong shape suggests that these five panels were part of a series intended to decorate a piece of furniture, possibly the drawers of an ebony wood cabinet.  The subjects may depict events before, during and after a peasant wedding.  Taken as a whole, the panels seem to form part of a narrative with the three Weldon pictures representing the lead up to the event (peasants arriving and greeting each other), while the fourth panel depicts the celebration itself (peasants dancing), and the fifth details the aftermath (a drunken peasant being escorted home).  It is likely that there were additional panels in the series with one probably depicting the wedding feast itself.  In a footnote to Georges Marlier’s text (see Literature), Jacqueline Folie suggests that another panel of the same size and format, depicting Peasants in an Open Wagon, may be part of this same series.²  It would certainly fit in thematically as it depicts a group of rowdy peasants travelling together, possibly on their way to the celebration. 

A note on the provenance
These works have previously been published as having been confiscated by German Occupation authorities from a Dutch private collection in 1940.  Despite extensive research, Sotheby’s has been unable to find any evidence to support this provenance.  Sotheby’s conclusion, which is supported by Dr. R.E.O. Ekkart, chair of the Ekkart Committee with responsibility for supervision of provenance research undertaken by the Herkomst Gezocht project, is that this provenance originates in the misinterpretation of the immediate post-war history of the panels.

In 1945 the panels were confiscated by the Monuments Men from Dr. Günther Quandt along with many other works in his art collection.  It was assumed by the officers in the Baden-Baden Collecting Point that the panels had been looted by the Germans from a Dutch collection, before being auctioned in 1943.  Accordingly the panels were sent to the Stichting Nederlands Kunstbezit (SNK) in the Netherlands for restitution.  The SNK was not able to find any trace of a Dutch provenance and so eventually the pictures were returned to the French authorities in Baden-Baden.  As the researchers in Baden-Baden were equally unable to find any trace of their pre-1943 ownership, the panels were restituted to Dr. Quandt in 1946/7.

Sotheby's is extremely grateful for the assistance freely given by public institutions, private researchers, and prior owners in researching this provenance.  We would particularly like to thank Dr. Ekkart and Perry Schrier for their aid.

 

1.  By the time of the Pieter de Boer exhibition in 1963, see Exhibited, only the three Weldon paintings remained together.
2.  See Ertz, under Literature, cat no. E1111, reproduced p. 751,  color plate 646; and Sale, New York, Christie's, 4 June 2014, lot 5;  Ertz, however, does not link this panel to the other five and dates it later, to the 1620s.