A wide mountainous landscape featuring The Temptation of Christ, oil on canvas, 52 x 56 cm, framed

Provenance:
Belgian private collection.

Literature:
K. Ertz, C. Nitze-Ertz, Jan Brueghel der Ältere, Kritischer Katalog der Gemälde, vol. 4, Lingen 2008/2010, p. 1655, add. 20.

Ertz writes about the present painting, which dates from circa 1600: “The unusual format of the picture, approximating a square, suggests that it was commissioned. And the fact that canvas was used as a support for this modestly sized painting instead of copper or wood may also most likely be ascribed to a patron’s wish. Different from his later canvas paintings, in this early composition, which I believe was painted in Antwerp around 1600 in reminiscence of Brueghel’s impressions gained in Italy, the artist obviously sought to demonstrate that the canvas support was by no means detrimental to his superior skills and craftsmanship as a fijnschilder. Here a world landscape arranged on three planes is viewed from a raised vantage point and rendered with extreme accuracy and an extraordinary sense of detail – a prototypical composition as it recurred in landscape painting throughout the 16th century…” Ertz compares the present painting to a Wooded Landscape with a Castle in the Prado, Madrid, which dates from the same period. Around 1605–10, the present painting was followed by further depictions of the Temptation of Christ – a version painted on copper in the Uffizi, Florence and a variant on panel in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.

The scene depcited is from the Gospel of Luke (4:1–13): “An the devil, taking him up into a high mountain, shewed onto him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. And the devil said unto him, ‘All this power will I give thee, and the glory of them: for that is delivered onto me; and to whomsoever I will I give it. If thou therefore wilt worship me, all shall be thine.’ And Jesus answered and said unto him, ‘Get thee behind me, Satan: for it is written, thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve…’"