Josef van Bredael

(Antwerp 1688–1739 Paris)
A village landscape with travellers and peasants repairing a horse-drawn cart,
oil on copper, 24.2 x 37.8 cm, framed

We are grateful to Klaus Ertz for confirming the attribution of the present painting. A certificate is available, dated 10 February 2016.

Josef van Bredael is considered one of the most important Brueghel epigones. Klaus Ertz mentions that after Jan Brueghel the Younger, Bredael is the painter who kept the artistic legacy of the great inventor Jan Brueghel the Elder alive in numerous compositions even after the latter’s death in 1625 (see K. Ertz, in: Josef van Bredael, Lingen, 2006, p. 7). In his certificate, Ertz writes: 'The painting to be assessed here is known to me in the original. Having thoroughly examined the copper panel, I am convinced that it was painted by the Flemish artist Josef van Bredael in the first decades of the eighteenth century […]. The artist’s motifs are reminiscent of those of Jan Brueghel the Elder, but seem new and independently conceived in their arrangements. Compared to the surrounding space, they appear larger and more dominant, forming the very centre of a scene – such as that of the vehicle’s broken axle in the present case – instead of serving as mere staffage filling up the picture’s space. These almost genre-like narrations fire the imagination of the spectator, who is encouraged to identify with the figures and the scene.'