Hendrick van Balen Antwerp 1575 - 1632, and Jan Brueghel the Elder Brussels 1568 - 1625 Antwerp

The form of the Peeter Stas stamp on the reverse of the copper support appears to be datable to circa 1605, since it is consistent with copper plates dated to this year and the preceding year.¹  While providing a terminus post quem, this dating should not however be taken as a reliable guide indication that the painting is quite so early.  For one thing the copper plate might not have been used for several years (although they were expensive, and one would not expect them to have been left unused for long), and for another it may well have been the case that Stas continued to use a form of this small stamp for smaller, cheaper coppers for years after 1606, when the stamp he used on his larger, heavier and more expensive plates changed to other forms (although this copper lacks the Antwerp assay mark usually found on later coppers).

During the first decade of the 17^th Century Van Balen was strongly influenced by Hans Rottenhammer, to whom this picture was formerly attributed.  The Italianate figure of Ceres is indeed close to Rottenhammer in style, but the attribution to him can be ruled out on the grounds of Jan Brueghel’s collaboration, and the Antwerp source, and the likely earliest date of use of Stas’ copper.  Rottenhammer and Brueghel were both in Rome in the circle of Cardinal Federico Borromeo between 1591 and 1595.  Rottenhammer subsequently returned to Venice, where he stayed until 1603 (or 1606), when he settled in Augsburg.  Although he executed commissions elsewhere in Germany, notably at Bückeburg, there is no evidence that he came to Antwerp.  Jan Brueghel travelled from Rome to Milan with Borromeo in 1595, and returned to Antwerp in 1596; he then remained in The Netherlands until his death almost thirty years later.  Thus Rottenhammer and Brueghel were never in the same city after 1595.   Between 1595 and 1600 Hendrick van Balen travelled in Italy, presumably meeting Rottenhammer in Venice, before settling in Antwerp.

Jan Brueghel the Elder painted the fruit and vegetables, as well as the landscape setting.  These are highly typical of him, but are perhaps closest in style to pictures painted in collaboration with Hendrick van Balen which are generally dated somewhat later than the first decade of the century, such as the Fruit and Vegetable Garland with Angels of circa 1615 in a German private collection, and the two treatments of a Garland of Fruit around a Depiction of Ceres receiving Gifts from the Four Seasons, the first, in Antwerp, Dexia Bank, of circa 1617 and the second, in The Hague, Mauritshuis, of circa 1621-2.²  In the latter two works at least, Van Balen’s figures are smoother and less Rottenhammer-like than in the present work, and are consistent with a later dating.  Earlier than this, Breughel painted fewer fruit and vegetable still lifes, but the present work is consistent in style with earlier collaborations with Van Balen incorporating fruit and vegetables, such as The Allegory of Earth from the set of Four Elements painted for the Doria Pamphilij family (and still in the Galleria Doria Pamphilj in Rome) of circa 1611, and the related Allegory of Earth in a Scottish private collection which is dated 1611.³  Closer still is a copy of a lost work by Van Balen and Brueghel depicting Ceres in an Allegory of the Elements of circa 1605.⁴   Thus it may well be the case that this picture does indeed date from the first, rather than the second decade of the 17th Century.

1  Wadum, "Antwerp copper plates", in M. Komanecky (ed.), Copper as Canvas, exhibition catalogue, New York & Oxford 1999, pp. 93-116, and especially p. 104, figs. 5.11 & 5.12, for reproductions of similar stamps on coppers dated 1604 & 1605.
2  See A. van Suchtelen, in A.T. Woollett & A. van Suchtelen, Rubens & Brueghel.  A Working Friendship, exhibition catalogue, Zwolle 2006, pp. 152-165, nos. 19, 20, 21, allreproduced in colour.
3  See K. Ertz, Jan Brueghel der Ältere (1568-1625). Die Gemälde mit kritischem Oeuvrekatalog, Cologne 1979, pp. 368-9, 599, cat. no. 248, reproduced. p. 370, no. 439, and pp. 376, 599, no. 247, reproduced in colour fig. 448.
4  Idem, p. 363, reproduced fig. 434.