Pieter Brueghel the Younger Brussels 1564 - 1637/8 Antwerp

Prince Paul Troubetzkoï, his sale, Paris, Drouot, 3 May 1892, lot 4;
Jean Dollfus, his sale, Paris, Galerie Georges Petit, 1 April 1912, lot 79;
With Galerie Roelofsz., Amsterdam, 1985;
Offered, New York, Christie's, 15 January 1988, lot 142;
Anonymous sale ("The Property of a Gentleman"), London, Christie's, 8 July 1988, lot 7 (as Pieter Brueghel the Younger), where acquired by the present collector.

Amsterdam, Galerie Roelofsz., 1985.

A. Alexandre, "La Collection de M. Jean Dollfus", in Les Arts, no. 25, January 1904, p. 10, reproduced (as Flemish School, 16th Century);
A. Alexandre, "La Collection de M. Jean Dollfus", in Les Arts, no. 26, February 1904, p. 3;
G. Marlier, Pierre Brueghel le Jeune, Brussels 1969, p. 209, no. 10;
K. Ertz, Pieter Brueghel der Jüngere (1564-1637/38). Die Gemälde mit kritischem Oeuvrekatalog, Lingen 1988/2000, pp. 670 and 718, cat. no. E898*, reproduced p. 669, fig. 552.

Although included in his catalogue raisonné amongst autograph works by Pieter Brueghel the Younger, the entry indicates that Ertz considered the present work to be a good workshop version of an original by Brueghel. The composition is known in three signed and dated examples by Pieter Brueghel, of which the earliest, last recorded in the Varsano collection in Paris, is of 1611, followed by a painting of 1620 in the National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin, and one of 1622 with John Mitchell & Son Ltd., London, in 1958.¹ Five signed but undated pictures and a further eight unsigned but autograph versions of the composition are listed by Ertz.² The authentic paintings are all on panels of similar size (approximately 74 by 105 cm.), apart from several that are clearly fragments, and this would suggest that a means of transfer such as a tracing was used in Brueghel's workshop to replicate the design. While the general idea of this composition comes from Pieter van der Heyden's engraving after Pieter Bruegel the Elder, the composition is Pieter Brueghel the Younger's own invention.³

1. See Ertz, under Literature, pp. 716-17, cat. nos. E 889, E896*, and E890 respectively, first and last reproduced as figs. 550 and 546.
2. Ertz, op. cit., pp. 716-21, cat. nos. E889-904, some reproduced.
3. Van der Heyden's engraving is reproduced in Ertz, op. cit., p. 665, fig. 542.