Jan Breughel the Younger

With J.O. Leegenhoek, Paris, by 1979;
From whom bought by the present owner in 1980.

Maastricht, Pictura, 1979, no. 41;
Paris, Grand Palais, X^e Biennale Internationale des Antiquaires, 1980.

"The following condition report has been provided by Sarah Walden, an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. The painting is on a fine narrowly bevelled oak panel with a single central joint. This has been reglued and there is a fairly recent cradle. There are two minor brief old cracks at the top edge on the right that appear entirely stable, and the central joint is also clearly firm and secure. The vertical grain is faintly noticeable in places with little lines of darker old varnish down the grain on the foreground ledge. There are tiny slanted inserts in both base corners and in the upper left corner. The restoration is not particularly recent and the varnish is fine and mellow, with great clarity throughout. Apart from the little corner inserts there are two little retouched marks near the top edge; to the right of the joint and near the top right corner, and a narrow band of retouching down the joint, but otherwise the paint seems to have remained immaculately intact throughout. The remarkable perfection of the detail is exceptional, complete with its rich enamelled finish down to the finest veining in the leaves or in the petals of the iris. If one is to look for some marginal imperfection there is perhaps the faintest thinness in the deeper pink glazing of the central pink rose near the joint or the wings of the fly below, and there are a few little old crinkled places on the ledge near the base of the vase, but essentially the remarkable original technique has ensured that the paint has if anything grown more luminous over time and clearly it has always been protected. 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."

Jan Brueghel the Younger was born in Antwerp in 1601 and trained in the studio of his father Jan Brueghel the Elder until his departure for Italy in 1622.  After the unexpected death of his father in a cholera epidemic of 1625 he returned to Antwerp and took over his father's studio. 

Many of Jan Brueghel the Younger's flower pieces are based on his father's prototypes and the present painting is no exception.  The composition is largely derived from a still life by Jan Brueghel the Elder in the Kunsthistorische Museum, Vienna, dated by Klaus Ertz to 1608.¹  Brueghel the Younger's style in this period, before his departure to Italy, was heavily influenced by his father.  So close was the relationship between father and son that a number of these flower still lives have been identified as collaborative pieces with the hand of both master and pupil detectable.²

Although it is possible that the present picture was painted after the Younger's return from Italy, Ertz has convincingly argued that not only the collaborative pieces, but also the modified copies after his father's works, such as the present painting, were painted during the later 1610s and early 1620s.³  Jan Brueghel the Elder painted a number of large flower still lives in wooden tubs and his son did a series of versions after these.  Ertz believes that Brueghel the Younger's versions cannot have been painted in the late 1620s as there is no mention of wooden tubs in the studio diaries from this period.  It therefore follows that if a large proportion of these modified copies were produced by the Younger before his trip to Italy it seems probable that others, such as the present painting, were also produced at this time.  Stylistically this early date would fit with the tighter way the flowers have been painted here.  There is a looser, more fluid feel to Brueghel the Younger's brush strokes after his return from Italy.

Despite being based on a prototype designed by his father the present painting has some significant differences in both composition and style which makes it very much the Younger's own work.  He has replaced the large iris in the centre with two tulips and changed the arrangement of the acorns on the ledge.  The acorns have been moved to the far right and the space they occupied in the Elder's composition is taken by a branch from a crab apple tree.  The bottom lip of the Delft vase is gilded in the Elder's composition and not in the Younger's.  Stylistically, although still heavily influenced by his father's way of painting, the looser brush strokes in the vase and flower details visible under close examination are much more characteristic of the Younger and a precursor to the further loosening up of his style that was to come.

Sold with photostat certificates of Laurens Bol, dated Dordrecht 20^th May 1979 & Marie-Louise Hairs, dated Liège 26^th April 1979.

1.  See K. Ertz, Jan Brueghel der Ältere (1568-1625), Cologne 1979, pp. 265, 587-8, no. 179.
2.  See for example the still life offered London, Sotheby's, 12 December 2002, lot 12.
3.  For a discussion of this see K. Ertz. Jan Brueghel der Jungere, Freren 1984, p. 428.