Flemish School, early 17th century

La Borderie collection;

By whom sold, Lucerne, Galerie Fischer, 19 July 1927, lot 21 (as attributed to Pieter Bruegel the Elder);

Anonymous sale, Brussels, Galerie Fievez, 8 April 1930, lot 22 (as school of Pieter Breughel the Younger);

Acquired by John and Johanna Bass, who bequeathed it to the Bass Museum of Art, Miami Beach, by 1964;

By whom sold ("Property of the Bass Museum of Art, Sold to Benefit the Acquisitions Fund"), New York, Christie's, 29 October 2019, lot 813 (as Follower of Pieter Brueghel the Younger).

G. Gluck, Bruegels Gemälde, Wenen 1951, p. 119;

J. de Coo, Catalogus, Museum Mayer van den Bergh, Antwerp 1966, vol. I, p. 41 (as a copy of the painting in the Mayer van den Bergh collection, Antwerp);

G. Marlier, Pierre Bruegel le Jeune, Brussels 1969, p. 312, note 12;

K. Ertz, Pieter Brueghel der Jüngere, Lingen 1988/2000, vol. I, p. 256, cat. no. A.198, reproduced fig. 186 (as a copy after the painting in the Mayer van den Bergh Collection, Antwerp, that is attributed possibly to Hieronymous Francken the Younger);

A. Haack Christensen, E. de la Fuente Pedersen, A. Daly, D. Buti, G. Pastorelli, and J. Wadum, "Pieter Bruegel the Elder's Copenhagen oil sketch of 'The Strife between Carnival and Lent,' 1562," in The Bruegel Success Story: Papers Presented at Symposium XXI for the Study of Underdrawing and Technology in Painting, Brussels, 12-14 September 2018, 2021, pp .136, 143–144, note 23.

This amusing roundel illustrates an enduringly popular theme in the southern Netherlands in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries: the Battle between Carnival and Lent. Although other examples of this subject were more encyclopedic in nature, such as Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s celebrated painting of 1559 in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna,¹ the present painting depicts a more restrained strife between the figures of Carnival (the plump monk in red) and Lent (the gaunt female figure), the latter of whom seems to place a bite on the engorged cheek of her neighbor. Ultimately, the inspiration for this scene lies in a signed and dated panel by Pieter Bruegel the Elder in the Statens Museum fur Kunst in Copenhagen.² The present panel, however, is more closely related in composition to a work attributed by Ertz to Hieronymous Francken the Younger in the Museum Mayer van den Bergh in Antwerp.³

¹ Inv. no. 1016, oil on panel, 118 by 163.7 cm.

² Inv. no. KMS1639, oil on panel, 25 by 34 cm. Dr. Klaus Ertz ascribes this panel in Copenhagen instead to Pieter Brueghel the Younger. See K. Ertz, Pieter Brueghel the Younger, Lingen 1988/2000, vol. I, pp. 248–249, 255–256, cat. no. E 196, reproduced fig. 185. For a recent discussion of the panel in Copenhagen, see. Haack Christensen et al. in Literature.

³ Oil on panel, 25.2 by 35.8 cm. Ertz 1988/2000, vol. I, pp. 249–250, cat. no. A197, reproduced fig. 187. In his discussion of the present panel, Ertz considers it to be a copy after the painting in Antwerp.