The Property of a European Private Collector
Pieter Brueghel the Younger
The kermesse of Saint George
Lot Closed
December 9, 02:19 PM GMT
Estimate
40,000 - 60,000 GBP
Lot Details
Description
The Property of a European Private Collector
Follower of Pieter Brueghel the Younger
The kermesse of Saint George
indistinctly inscribed lower right
oil on canvas
unframed: 110.2 x 158.1 cm.; 43⅜ x 62¼ in.
framed: 129.7 x 177.8 cm.; 51⅛ x 70 in.
Thence by family descent.
This large canvas replicates a composition that, unlike the majority of his œuvre, Pieter Brueghel the Younger designed independently of any of his father's works. It is a subject that encompasses the full gamut of activities associated with the kermesse, from piety, to festivity, to over-indulgence and violence, all depicted in rich detail and colour.
Only four autograph versions of this composition are known, making it one of Brueghel's rarest inventions. The prime version, signed and dated 1628, and of only slightly larger dimensions than the present work, was sold in these Rooms, 8 December 2004, lot 11 (for £3,701,600);1 another version, on a smaller scale and signed but not dated, is in the Stahuis Antwerpen, Antwerp;2 a painting of similar size, likewise signed and undated, was offered at Christie's, London, 9 July 2015, lot 45;3 and a further painting, believed also to be autograph, recorded in the Oberlander collection before 1993, is known only from a photograph.4
Klaus Ertz divides these four paintings into two types: Type A, the painting sold at Sotheby's in 2004, and the ex-Oberlander picture; and Type B, the work offered at Christie's and the one in Antwerp. The present painting follows the Type A composition in the position of the bagpiper in the lower right corner, rather than by the door of the inn, but takes the motif of the glutton beside an open basket in the foreground from Type B (rather than the closed basket found in Type A), and likewise omits the cockerel from the thatched roof on the right, which appears in Type A. Unlike either of the 'types', the artist here has included a dog at the bagpiper's feet.
This painting has been extensively repainted throughout. When it was cleaned and restored in 1985, certain of the scatological details in the foreground were uncovered, having previously been censored with overpaint, and the rather mysterious, illegible inscription visible in the ground, lower right, became apparent.
1 https://rkd.nl/explore/images/201817
2 https://rkd.nl/explore/images/57579