Lot 53
  • 53

Joos de Momper, Jan Brueghel the Elder

Estimate
150,000 - 200,000 USD
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Description

  • Joos de Momper
  • Mountainous Landscape with a Bridge Across a River
  • oil on panel

Provenance

Probably Chr. Aspelin, Stockholm;1
Count Christian von Rosen;
Prof. Einar Perman (1893-1976), Stockholm;
Thence by descent in the family;
From whom purchased, through the intermediary of Charles Roelofsz, by the present owner by 1987.   

Literature

K. Ertz, Josse de Momper der Jüngere (1564-1635): Die Gemälde mit kritischem Oeuvrekatalog, Freren, Germany,1986, pp. 130 and 520, cat. no. 191, reproduced p. 130, fig. 107 (as by De Momper);
K. Ertz and C. Nitze-Ertz, Jan Brueghel der Ältere (1568-1625):  Kritischer Katalog de Gemälde, vol. IV, Jan Brueghel d. Ä. als Mitarbeiter, Lingen, Germany, 2008-2010, p. 1468, cat. no. 679, reproduced in color (as by De Momper and J. Brueghel the Elder).

Condition

The following condition report has been provided by Simon Parkes of Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc. 502 East 74th St. New York, NY 212-734-3920, simonparkes@msn.com, an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's.This work on panel has a cradle on the reverse. The panel is flat. An original horizontal join is slightly visible through the lower sky. The paint layer is visibly in very good condition. It is dirty at present. The golden color in the upper left in the sky may not be period. There are a few retouches in the upper left in the dark cliff, in the dark colors above the figure group in the lower left, and some retouches along the original panel join, but the remainder of the picture is in lovely 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

The Mountainous Landscape with a Bridge Crossing a River, which dates from circa 1600-1610,  the midpoint of Josse de Momper's career, shows clearly why he was so famous for his landscapes, both during his lifetime and in the centuries since.  Here in his use of aerial perspective, in which the colors shade from brown to green to blue as the landscape recedes into the distance, he draws on the conventions of the “world landscape” developed by Joachim Patenir, but incorporates more realistic elements, lowering the viewpoint and adding more explicit detail to the landscape itself.  The groups of figures strung out along the road are by Jan Brueghel the Elder, with whom De Momper collaborated on about 200 paintings over the course of 40 years or more.2

De Momper's name was so closely associated with his mountain landscapes that in the extremely popular Iconography, a series of portrait prints of artists based on Van Dyck’s designs, he is described as Judocus de Momper Pictor montium Antwerpiae (Josse de Momper Antwerp Painter of mountains).  He was extremely creative, drawing on a variety of compositional motifs.  For example, within the genre of mountain scenes, we can identify a group of pictures featuring bridges across a mountain stream or gorge, of which the present work, datable to about 1600-1610, is a particularly fine example.3 Here the landscape is closed off by mountains at the left and right so that our attention is focused on the travelers at the center of the composition, wending their way slowly from the middle distance to the left foreground.  Behind them is a wooded landscape painted in rapid, confident strokes and highlighted with a very fine brush enlivening the entire composition.  The seamless integration of Brueghel's figures into the landscape reflects the natural affintity between the two artists, which resulted in their long and fruitful collaboration.

1.  The Aspelin provenance is noted in a letter to the present owner by a descendent of Prof. Perman.  The present work may correspondent with a picture described in O. Granberg, Catalogue raissonné de tableaux anciens inconnus jusqu'ici dans les collections privé de la Suède, Stockholm 1886, p. 281, no. 481, "Paysage montueux avec des cavaliers. -- Bois.  Assez grand tableaux." 
2. K. Ertz and C. Nitze-Ertz, op. cit., p. 1378, attributes 207 works to the pair and believes that the partnership certainly had begun by 1596, but may even date from the 1580s.
3. K. Ertz, op. cit., p. 520.