Marten van Cleve I

Private collection, France;

Anonymous sale, London, Sotheby's, 27 October 2011, lot 4;

Where acquired by the present collector.

K. Ertz and C. Nitze-Ertz, Marten van Cleve 1524–1581. Kritischer Katalog der Gemälde und Zeichnungen, Lingen 2014, pp. 19, 52, 175, cat. no. 88, reproduced (as Marten van Cleve).

This depiction of a raucous clash between peasants and pilgrims–identified by the seashells sewn onto their clothing–possibly relates to the legend of Saint Martin, who may be the armored figure on horseback in the distance at right. In seventeenth-century Flanders, Saint Martin’s Day was a popular tradition celebrated each November with wine, feasts, and public entertainment. Artists including Pieter Breughel the Elder and Marten van Cleve specialized in scenes of peasant life and often depicted such revelry. Indeed, the holiday was infamous for the numerous fights that broke out among revelers.

A second version of this composition is in the National Museum, Wroclaw.¹

¹ Oil on panel, 93.5 by 126.0 cm.; inv. no. 2197; https://research.rkd.nl/en/detail/https%3A%2f%2fdata.rkd.nl%2fimages%2f57943.