(Brussels 1568–1625 Antwerp)
The Temptation of Saint Anthony,
oil on panel, 14 x 23,6 cm, framed

Provenance:
Private collection, Belgium

We are grateful to Klaus Ertz for confirming the authenticity of the present painting. A written certificate, dated 23 December 2015, is available.

Ertz dates the present painting to around 1595, Brueghel’s Italian period. He writes: ‘In his early years, Jan Brueghel the Elder had already dealt with the subject of Saint Anthony in several versions, including one dated from around 1595 and a second, which is preserved in Dresden and was painted ten years later (see K. Ertz/Ch. Nitze-Ertz, Jan Brueghel der Ältere, Lingen, 2008–10, vol. II, pp. 616-623, cat. nos. 293 and 295). In all of these versions, the artist invented the infernal landscape. The motif of the Temple of the Tiburtine Sibyl near Rome, which the artist frequently used at the time, also speaks in favour of this early date of execution. It is typical of Jan Brueghel the Elder that he treated a theme in a version on copper and slightly varied it on panel. Probably the present little panel is one of the earliest versions of the subject on which the Dresden painting is based. In all of his compositions devoted to the theme of Saint Anthony, it seems to have been unthinkable for Jan the Elder to set the scene of the temptation in different surroundings, such as in an intimate forest. The present composition thus proves a theory frequently voiced in this context, namely that Jan the Elder, as soon as he had chosen a compositional type for a certain subject, would remain true to it.’

In his monograph on Jan Brueghel the Elder, Ertz comments upon Brueghel’s special iconography for the subject: ‘With such infernal landscapes, Jan Brueghel the Elder presents himself as a highly typical exponent of Mannerist painting around 1600. A Fleming, he particularly adopted the theme of monsters and spooky and fantastic creatures that had been introduced by Hieronymus Bosch and which in Brueghel’s art culminated in a genre of its own right. It goes without saying that he was also influenced by the spectres in the art of his father, such as those encountered in the Fall of the Rebel Angels in Brussels. In literature and general art jargon, the name ‘Hell Brueghel’ is often wrongly used as a synonym for landscapes ravaged by fire or illuminated by lightning and populated by fantastic and eerie creatures, the darkness frequently being torn apart by dazzling lights. However, this nickname has always been associated with one of the two Pieters and especially became a rigid formula for Jan’s brother, although it has meanwhile turned out that Pieter the Younger did not paint a single so called infernal landscape.’