- 39
Pieter Brueghel the Younger
Description
- Pieter Brueghel the Younger
- Twelfth Night
- signed in monogram lower centre: P.B.
- oil on oak panel
Provenance
Thereafter in the Gemäldegalerie, Dresden until restituted to the heirs of the Richter family in 2002.
Exhibited
Literature
M. Diaz-Padron, 'La obra de Pedro Brueghel el joven en Espana', in Archivo Espanol de Arte, 1980, p. 311;
K. Ertz, in the exhibition catalogue, Brueghel–Brueghel. Tradizione e Progresso: una famiglia di pittori fiamminghi tra Cinque e Seicento, Cremona, 1998, p. 99, reproduced fig. 2;
K. Ertz, Pieter Brueghel der Jüngere, Lingen 1998/2000, p. 535, cat. no. F582, reproduced p. 524, fig. 391 (as Maerten van Cleve or Pieter Brueghel);
K. Ertz, Marten van Cleve 1524–1581. Kritischer Katalog der Gemälde und Zeichnungen, Lingen 2014, p.61, reproduced fig. 77 (as by Pieter Brueghel the Younger).
Condition
"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."
Catalogue Note
Although Pieter Brueghel the Younger normally used his father's work as a source for his designs, in this case the composition is probably based upon a lost composition by his father's contemporary Marten van Cleve (1524–81). The overall design of the setting and the two dancing figures on the left of the composition may be linked to an engraving by Balthasar van den Bos of the 1550s after Van Cleve (fig.1), although the remaining individual figures differ considerably. No documented or signed original by Van Cleve has survived. Of the many copies or variants that have, Ertz lists only two that he considers as possible autograph examples by Van Cleve. These are those sold Brussels, Palais des Beaux-Arts, 17 November 1970, lot 41 (as by Van Cleve) and that formerly with Galerie Katz in Dieren.3 The original was certainly sufficiently well known or well regarded for Rubens himself to make a copy of it in the following century, which he may himself have owned and was certainly later in the possession of his brother-in-law Arnold Lunden (1596–1656) in Antwerp.4 This was one of three works which depicted popular winter festivals in the Netherlands, the others being the Feast of Saint Martin and the Procession of the lame men, all of which seem to have been based upon prototypes by Van Cleve.5
In this last regard it is interesting to note that recent dendrochronological examination has revealed that the upper board of the present panel is the same as those used by Rubens himself in his portraits of Jean Charles de Cordes and his wife Jacqueline van Caestre today in the Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts in Brussels.6As this tree has a likely felling date of shortly after 1600, and the Rubens portraits are generally dated to around 1619, a similar date of execution for this painting would therefore seem quite plausible.
1. A copy of his expertise, dated 2 November 2005 accompanies this lot.
2. Ertz 1998/2000, under Literature, p.534, cat. nos E576–E578.
3. K. Ertz 2014, under Literature, pp. 182–83, cat. nos 101 and 102, reproduced.
4. Sold, London, Christie's, 8 December 2004, lot 22.
5. For a discussion of the relationship between the work of Van Cleve and Pieter Brueghel the Younger, see, for example, Marlier 1969, under Literature, pp. 333–64.
6. Inv. nos 2618 and 2619. The upper board here is from the same source as the left hand board (of three) of the former and the central board of the latter. A copy of Ian Tyers's report accompanies this lot.