(Antwerp 1601–1678)
Wallonian hilly landscape with travellers,
oil on canvas, 33.5 x 63.6 cm, framed

Provenance:
Sotheby’s auction, London, 1 November 2005, lot 33 (as “Follower of Jan Brueghel the Elder”);
Private collection, Vienna

We are grateful to Dr Klaus Ertz, who identified this painting as an authentic work by Jan Brueghel II. A comprehensive certificate is available.

As Dr Ertz writes, “this canvas is very finely and precisely executed in its details, with a style and landscape approach modelled after the work of his father, Jan Brueghel the Elder, whose studio his son took over in 1625. However, this painting is not only reminiscent of his father’s compositions. The characteristics of the landscape reveal the influence of Josse de Momper the Younger, whom he met in his father Jan the Elder’s studio and with whom, after the latter’s death, he collaborated for the execution of numerous paintings [...]. Landscape paintings with covered wagons and travellers were especially popular. Besides Brueghels and Momper, many other artists devoted themselves to this type of composition. Prominent among them are – to quote just an exemplary selection – painters such as Pieter Gysels, Adriaen van Stalbemt and Kerstiaen de Keuninck. The ‘Wallonian hilly landscape’, a concept derived from the work of Josse of Momper the Younger, developed from mountainous landscapes from 1610 onwards. These hilly landscape levels are intersected by a number of paths, running from the foreground all the way to the background. The light of an overcast sun, almost always coming from the upper left, plays a significant role in that it illuminates some portions of the landscape more than others, thus creating three-dimensionality. This effect is enhanced by means of the figures in the foreground becoming smaller and smaller as they approach the middleground and background.

Dr Ertz dates the present painting to the late 1620s, comparing it to the following works by Jan Brueghel II:
1. Vast landscape with windmill (Munich, Alte Pinakothek, late 1620s);
2. Road near a forest (Madrid, Museo del Prado, late 1620s);
3. Landscape with travellers and a bittern hunter (Paris, Aaron gallery, 1983, late 1620s);
4. Vast landscape with travellers (Vienna, Sanct Lucas Gallery, 1630s);
5. Village road with a canal (Aschaffenburg, Staatsgalerie im Schloss Johannisburg, 1630s)

Ertz writes, “The latter comparison shows that Jan Brueghel the Younger repeatedly dealt with his father’s work, using individual motifs for his own compositions. One such motif is the couple ‘running out’ of the picture, a popular element not only in the 17th century, deployed here in order to create depth in the painting. The painting under consideration can be regarded as very close to the aforementioned works for its dating, composition, accuracy and colours. The brushwork emulates Jan the Elder’s painting technique, meticulously following the details. Many of its features are reminiscent of the paintings of Jan the Elder and Josse de Momper the Younger and are modelled after their compositions. These similarities suggest a small chronological distance from the oeuvre of the two aforementioned painters, and this seems wholly reasonable to me on the grounds our knowledge of Jan Brueghel the Younger’s paintings and of the general development of landscapes in Flemish painting over the course of the 17th century [...].”