Jan Brueghel the Younger

Kulturhaus der Stadt Graz, Gemälde aus steirischem Privatbesitz,14 October - 13 November 1971.

W. Steinboeck, Gemälde aus steirischem Privatbesitz, Kulturhaus der Stadt Graz,14 October - 13 November 1971, pp. 30-31, reproduced.

"The following condition report has been provided by Henry Gentle, an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. The copper panel is in a good, flat, stable condition. There are some minor restored losses to the area at 8 o'clock and minor abrasions to the more delicate features such as the shadows to the boats, the rigging and the flying birds. Otherwise, the painting is in excellent original, untouched condition; the colours are fresh and the paint texture is well preserved. Removing the varnish would improve the tonality. Offered in a dark wood and gilt frame, with minor worm damage."
"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."

Jan Brueghel the Younger was born in Antwerp in 1601, and would have started his training in the studio of his father Jan Brueghel the Elder (1568-1625) at the age of ten (as was common practice for an apprentice) before travelling to Italy in 1623-4. Upon the unexpected death of his father from cholera in 1625, Brueghel hurried back to Antwerp to assume control, at the age of just 24, of one of the largest and most successful workshops in Antwerp.

The references in the present composition to the work of his father are very clear: the tower to the right of the composition is a capriccio of the "Tomb of Scipio" on the Appian Way, which was sketched on several occasions by Jan Brueghel the Elder during his sojourn in Rome in 1593 and it is used in the compositions of both father and son. However, the main source from which this composition is most closely derived is the panel by the elder Brueghel listed by Ertz as in a private collection, Nürnberg.¹ Today there is much confusion between the late works of Jan Brueghel the Elder and the early works of Jan Brueghel the Younger, as the younger Brueghel and his workshop were continuously supplying pictures of a very high quality to a market hungry for pictures in the style of his father. The problem is compounded in works such as this, which is of unusually high quality for a work by Jan Brueghel the Younger, and we therefore must not completely discount the possibility of an attribution to Jan Brueghel the Elder. Jan Brueghel the Younger was to return to this motif on a couple of occasions; the nearest known treatment of this composition by Jan Brueghel the Younger, signed and dated 1642, is in the Gëmaldegalerie, Dresden.² However, the much tighter drawing, the subtle use of light and the more precise way of painting would point to an earlier date of execution for the present jewel-like little copper, probably during the late 1620s or the 1630s, when Jan Brueghel was at the very pinnacle of his career, having been elected head of the Guild of Saint Luke in 1630. During the later 1630s and 1640s his style was to taper into a more fluid and less refined way of painting with less attention to detail, and is more easily recognisable as his work.

1. See K. Ertz, Jan Brueghel der ältere, Cologne 1979, p. 579, cat. no. 132, reproduced p. 174, plate 194.
2. See K. Ertz, Jan Brueghel der jüngere, Freren 1984, p. 238, cat. no. 59, reproduced plate 59.