Circle of Paul Bril

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Description

Paul Bril
an extensive river landscape with christ healing the possessed of gerasa;an extensive landscape with the meeting of jacob and esau
a pair, both oil on copper

Provenance

Private collection, Belgium, by the late 19th Century, and thence by descent to the present owners.

Catalogue Note

Both compositions recur within the established œuvre of Paul Bril (1553/4-1626). The first work is known through at least four painted versions of which the prime, autograph painting by Bril, signed and dated 1601, is in the Alte Pinakothek, Munich (inv. no. 876). In all these versions the subject matter is Christ healing the possessed of Gerasa (Mark V:1-14; Luke VIII: 27-34), but in the present work both the configuration and position of the group of figures in the foreground are different. The staffage is done by another hand than the landscapes.

The landscape of the second painting is known through a drawing by Bril showing a Classical hilly landscape with figures and villages, in the Musée du Louvre, Paris (inv. no. 19.797). Apart from the present work, three other almost identical versions of this composition are known, all on copper but each showing a different narrative story. Drs. Luuk Pijl considers these all to be done by the same hand and at present there is no autograph version by Bril known.

We are grateful to Drs. Luuk Pijl for his help in cataloguing this lot. In his opinion this pair of paintings was produced in the 1620 or 1630s.