Attributed to Peeter Baltens

With Galerie de Boer, Amsterdam, 1926;

With Galerie Speelman, London, 1949;

Anonymous sale, London, Christie's, 28 November 1958, lot 143 (as Pieter Brueghel the Younger);

Where acquired by Wengraf;

With Galerie de Heuvel, Brussels, by 1961 (as Pieter Brueghel the Younger);

Vaxelaire Collection, 1962;

Private collection, Brussels, 1969;

Thereafter acquired by the present owner, by 1990. 

G. Marlier, "Peeter balten, copist ou créateur?" in Musées royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique (Brussels) Bulletin 14 (1965), pp. 134-136, reproduced fig. 7 (as Pieter Brueghel the Younger);

G. Marlier, Pierre Brueghel le Jeune, Brussels 1969, pp. 330-331, reproduced fig. 197 (as Pieter Brueghel the Younger);

S.J. Kostyshyn, "Door tsoecken men vindt": A Reintroduction to the Life and Work of Peeter Baltens Alias Custodis of Antwerp (1527-1585), Ph.D. dissertation, Case Western Reserve University 1994, pp. 298, 642-647, 682-684, cat. nos. 37 and 53, reproduced figs. 89, 91 (as possibly by Pieter Baltens);

K. Ertz, Pieter Brueghel the Younger, Lingen 1988/2000, vol. II, pp. 948, 950, 952, cat. no. F1373, reproduced fig. 761 (as "fraglich," (doubtful) and noting that an attribution to Pieter Baltens is as possible as Pieter Brueghel the Younger). 

Traditionally ascribed to Pieter Brueghel the Younger, this panel was first attributed to Peeter Baltens by Dr. Stephen J. Kostyshyn, who dates it to the first half of the 1570s around the same time as Baltens’ St. Martin’s Day Kermis in Amsterdam. Baltens was a colleague and close contemporary of Pieter Brueghel the Elder in Antwerp, whose inevitable influence is palpable in this depiction of rustic country life. The figure group  depicted around the campfire is a repeated motif throughout the artist’s oeuvre, first appearing in his Village Wedding in the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, Brussels.¹ A variation of one of Baltens’ figures appears in the lower left of Breughel the Elder’s Children’s Games, suggesting a possible relationship between the two artists and perhaps a current of mutual influence.²

¹ Peeter Baltens, Village Wedding. Brussels, Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, inv. no. 8957.

² Pieter Brueghel the Elder, Children’s Games. Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum, inv. No. G1017.