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Lot Essay
Between 1600 and 1619, Brueghel refined a distinct type of landscape painting, combining a close-up view of staffage on country roads in the foreground with wide, panoramic vistas beyond. These compositions represent a significant development in the genre of landscape painting, merging the older traditions of the so-called Weltlandschaft (‘world landscape’), which was pioneered in the Netherlands by painters like Joachim Patinir in the sixteenth century, and genre subjects which focused more closely on detailed views of daily life. The use of this split perspective may itself have been a device inherited from his father, Pieter Bruegel the Elder, seen in paintings like his Fall of Icarus of circa 1560 (Koninklijke Musea voor Schone Kunsten van België, Brussels).
The distinct elements of the present copper are subtly brought together in the present work through Brueghel’s careful gradations of color. The browns of the earth and soil in the foreground give way to the more vibrant greens of the middle ground before resolving in the rich blue-green of the distant mountains. These, in turn, yield to the luminously painted clear skies above. The brilliance of these colors and the careful modulations of tone and effect, combined with Brueghel’s delicacy of execution, amply demonstrate why the painter earned the sobriquet ‘Velvet Brueghel’ (Fluwelen Brueghel) during his lifetime. The format of panoramic landscapes like this painting in Brueghel’s oeuvre seem to have developed from of his earlier depictions of roads leading to urban markets, of which the earliest known example, The road to market, is dated 1601 (formerly with Kaplan, London, 1956). Towards the end of the first decade of the seventeenth century, Brueghel began to abandon the elevated perspective which typified these earlier landscapes in favor of a more natural, lower vantage point. The greater emphasis on horizontality is something which can be seen developing in the present work.
In 1606, a few years before this copper was painted, Brueghel was appointed court painter to the Governors of the Southern Netherlands, the Archduke Albert and his wife, Isabella, a position Brueghel retained until his death. This introduced him to the very highest circles of patrons and collectors of Flemish society. The refinement and quality of the painting here may suggest the work was made for a member of this circle. Indeed, the format and subject of the painting were evidently amongst the artist’s more popular compositions during the early 1600s. Klaus Ertz has noted that Brueghel’s River landscape with travellers in Dresden, which dates to 1608, shares several motifs with the present picture, including the dense group of trees at the left of the composition and the atmospheric rendering of the distant vista at right (fig. 1). Other elements seem to derive from other compositions, and Brueghel frequently repeated successful designs in his landscapes. The central carriage here was often employed by the painter though habitually varied, according to the overall organization of the work. Here, for example, the carriage closely resembles in reverse that seen in the Road in the environs of a town in The State Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg of circa 1611.
The distant church at the end of the road makes a distinct and important focal point, drawing the viewer’s eye along the path and into the painting’s background. Such compositional devices appear in many of Jan Brueghel’s landscapes. While serving to enhance and augment the spatial effect and depth of the painting, this prominent spire also reflects may also have been understood in terms of contemporary culture. Positioned at the end of the road, the church can, for example, be understood to refer to the old Flemish proverb: ‘the journey is not over if you can discern the church and the steeple’, an admonition not to give up until the task is finished. It may also be read as a visual metaphor for the ‘journey of life’, reminding the viewer of the importance of leading a moral life. In this vein, the horse’s skull and leg bone in the painting’s central foreground might serve to further this message, serving as a kind of memento mori, both for the painting’s viewer and the travellers along the path.
The harmony of the landscape, bathed in warm light and filled with verdant lush foliage and trees, might similarly be understood in the context of contemporary history. Brueghel’s painting was made at a moment of renewed stability in the Low Countries, following the introduction of the Twelve Years’ Truce in 1609, which created a temporary detente between the Habsburg Netherlands and the Dutch United Provinces. With the announcement of the truce, areas of land which had been ravaged in the conflict and abandoned began to be repopulated and recultivated, ushering in a period of relative economic and agricultural growth. The bucolic, flourishing countryside was, therefore, emblematic of the moment’s political harmony.
A NOTE ON THE PROVENANCE
This painting once formed part of the illustrious collections of the Palatine Electors of the Rhine and later of Bavaria. The earliest mention of the painting appears to be in an inventory, compiled shortly after the death of Johann Wilhelm, Elector Palatine and Count Palatine of Neuberg in 1716 and published in 1750. Here, the painting is listed alongside numerous other pictures by Jan Brueghel as ‘A Coach and two Wagons, with a multitude of images, of Men and Beasts, in a beautiful Landscape’. On his death, the Elector’s collection and titles passed to his brother, Karl Philipp III, who transferred it from Düsseldorf to Mannheim in 1730. In 1731, an anonymous artist made four drawings of the Mannheim picture galleries. The present work appears to be identifiable as the painting, labelled as by Brueghel, in the lower register third from right in one of these views (fig. 2). In 1777, the Palatine Elector inherited the Electorate of Bavaria, including the estates and goods of the House of Wittelsbach. The Mannheim gallery was subsequently merged with the Wittelsbach collections. Following the Elector’s death in 1799, both titles were inherited by his nephew, Maximilian Joseph. Seven years after his accession to the titles, Maximilian was made King of Bavaria and transferred his inherited collections to Munich. His son, Ludwig I, opened the Pinakothek in 1836 as a means of displaying the royal collection to the public. The present painting remained part of the collection until the late 1930s, when the then director of the Bavarian State Paintings Collection, Ernst Buchner, deaccessioned at least seventy-four paintings in order to raise funds to buy other works of art. The present painting was exchanged with four other works to acquire Jacob Jordaens' early, large-scale Nymphs and Fauns (inv. no. 10411) from the dealer Eduard Plietzsch. Several other works by Brueghel, including the Edge of a village with figures dancing on the bank of a river and a fish-seller and a self-portrait of the artist in the foreground, which subsequently set a world auction record for the artist when it sold in 2008, were deaccessioned by the museum in the first decades of the twentieth century.
The distinct elements of the present copper are subtly brought together in the present work through Brueghel’s careful gradations of color. The browns of the earth and soil in the foreground give way to the more vibrant greens of the middle ground before resolving in the rich blue-green of the distant mountains. These, in turn, yield to the luminously painted clear skies above. The brilliance of these colors and the careful modulations of tone and effect, combined with Brueghel’s delicacy of execution, amply demonstrate why the painter earned the sobriquet ‘Velvet Brueghel’ (Fluwelen Brueghel) during his lifetime. The format of panoramic landscapes like this painting in Brueghel’s oeuvre seem to have developed from of his earlier depictions of roads leading to urban markets, of which the earliest known example, The road to market, is dated 1601 (formerly with Kaplan, London, 1956). Towards the end of the first decade of the seventeenth century, Brueghel began to abandon the elevated perspective which typified these earlier landscapes in favor of a more natural, lower vantage point. The greater emphasis on horizontality is something which can be seen developing in the present work.
In 1606, a few years before this copper was painted, Brueghel was appointed court painter to the Governors of the Southern Netherlands, the Archduke Albert and his wife, Isabella, a position Brueghel retained until his death. This introduced him to the very highest circles of patrons and collectors of Flemish society. The refinement and quality of the painting here may suggest the work was made for a member of this circle. Indeed, the format and subject of the painting were evidently amongst the artist’s more popular compositions during the early 1600s. Klaus Ertz has noted that Brueghel’s River landscape with travellers in Dresden, which dates to 1608, shares several motifs with the present picture, including the dense group of trees at the left of the composition and the atmospheric rendering of the distant vista at right (fig. 1). Other elements seem to derive from other compositions, and Brueghel frequently repeated successful designs in his landscapes. The central carriage here was often employed by the painter though habitually varied, according to the overall organization of the work. Here, for example, the carriage closely resembles in reverse that seen in the Road in the environs of a town in The State Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg of circa 1611.
The distant church at the end of the road makes a distinct and important focal point, drawing the viewer’s eye along the path and into the painting’s background. Such compositional devices appear in many of Jan Brueghel’s landscapes. While serving to enhance and augment the spatial effect and depth of the painting, this prominent spire also reflects may also have been understood in terms of contemporary culture. Positioned at the end of the road, the church can, for example, be understood to refer to the old Flemish proverb: ‘the journey is not over if you can discern the church and the steeple’, an admonition not to give up until the task is finished. It may also be read as a visual metaphor for the ‘journey of life’, reminding the viewer of the importance of leading a moral life. In this vein, the horse’s skull and leg bone in the painting’s central foreground might serve to further this message, serving as a kind of memento mori, both for the painting’s viewer and the travellers along the path.
The harmony of the landscape, bathed in warm light and filled with verdant lush foliage and trees, might similarly be understood in the context of contemporary history. Brueghel’s painting was made at a moment of renewed stability in the Low Countries, following the introduction of the Twelve Years’ Truce in 1609, which created a temporary detente between the Habsburg Netherlands and the Dutch United Provinces. With the announcement of the truce, areas of land which had been ravaged in the conflict and abandoned began to be repopulated and recultivated, ushering in a period of relative economic and agricultural growth. The bucolic, flourishing countryside was, therefore, emblematic of the moment’s political harmony.
A NOTE ON THE PROVENANCE
This painting once formed part of the illustrious collections of the Palatine Electors of the Rhine and later of Bavaria. The earliest mention of the painting appears to be in an inventory, compiled shortly after the death of Johann Wilhelm, Elector Palatine and Count Palatine of Neuberg in 1716 and published in 1750. Here, the painting is listed alongside numerous other pictures by Jan Brueghel as ‘A Coach and two Wagons, with a multitude of images, of Men and Beasts, in a beautiful Landscape’. On his death, the Elector’s collection and titles passed to his brother, Karl Philipp III, who transferred it from Düsseldorf to Mannheim in 1730. In 1731, an anonymous artist made four drawings of the Mannheim picture galleries. The present work appears to be identifiable as the painting, labelled as by Brueghel, in the lower register third from right in one of these views (fig. 2). In 1777, the Palatine Elector inherited the Electorate of Bavaria, including the estates and goods of the House of Wittelsbach. The Mannheim gallery was subsequently merged with the Wittelsbach collections. Following the Elector’s death in 1799, both titles were inherited by his nephew, Maximilian Joseph. Seven years after his accession to the titles, Maximilian was made King of Bavaria and transferred his inherited collections to Munich. His son, Ludwig I, opened the Pinakothek in 1836 as a means of displaying the royal collection to the public. The present painting remained part of the collection until the late 1930s, when the then director of the Bavarian State Paintings Collection, Ernst Buchner, deaccessioned at least seventy-four paintings in order to raise funds to buy other works of art. The present painting was exchanged with four other works to acquire Jacob Jordaens' early, large-scale Nymphs and Fauns (inv. no. 10411) from the dealer Eduard Plietzsch. Several other works by Brueghel, including the Edge of a village with figures dancing on the bank of a river and a fish-seller and a self-portrait of the artist in the foreground, which subsequently set a world auction record for the artist when it sold in 2008, were deaccessioned by the museum in the first decades of the twentieth century.