Jan van Kessel the Elder Antwerp 1626 - 1679

With Robert Finck, Brussels, 1964, from whom bought by the father of the present owner.

Brussels, Galerie Robert Finck, Tableaux de Maîtres flamands du XVe au XVIIIe siècle, 1964, no. 41;
Brussels, Musées des Beaux-Arts, Le siècle de Rubens, 15 October - 12 December 1965, no. 135;
Brussels, Palais des Beaux-Arts, Bruegel. Une dynastie de peintres, 18 September - 18 November 1980, no. 262.

G. Marlier, in P. Roberts-Jones (ed.), Le siècle de Rubens, exhibition catalogue, Brussels 1965, p. 126, no. 135, reproduced;
W. Laureyssens, in P. Roberts-Jones (ed.), Bruegel. Une dynastie de peintres, exhibition catalogue, Brussels 1980, p. 320, no. 262, reproduced.

" The following condition report has been provided by Sarah Walden, an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. This painting has a wax and resin lining probably from the sixties. The texture has been well preserved and the wax has not affected the tonality. The restoration is from the same period, and may have used a synthetic resin varnish which is slightly blanching or separating at lower centre left in the landscape valley. Much of the retouching is in the sky: at the edges with various patches particularly along the top edge, scattered smaller touches elsewhere across the sky with rather more towards the upper right, a cluster of retouched fillings around the parrots in the upper left corner, a vertical filling about two inches long on the horizon, extending more narrowly further down, a small patch in the centre left background and a line along the base edge widening towards the right base corner. Some of the retouched fillings have finely retouched craquelure, while some have little almost tratteggio lines, and there are also some places with quite free repainting: the floating blond hair of the nymph, the central bright blue bird which is over a filling with painted craquelure, the orange tail of the second pheasant flying from the clouds at upper right and the nearby orange wings and reddish outlines of the full length putto, with much of the grey winged cherubim at lower right, and some of the others. Other strengthening touches can also be seen in the area around the neck of the swan at the back in the centre, and in some other fairly freely reworked patches around some other birds in the sky. However there is much intact vigorously painted vivid detail and extraordinarily expressive birds of all sorts, with magnificently preserved groups in the lower right foreground for example. This report was not done under laboratory conditions."
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

Van Kessel here revisits a subject pioneered by his grandfather Jan Brueghel the Elder, whose compositions were repeated, with and without variation by his uncle Jan Brueghel the Younger, in whose workshop he had worked.  The present composition is however of Van Kessel's own devising.