(Antwerp 1601–1678)
An Allegory of Smell
oil on canvas, 85.5 x 116 cm, framed

We are grateful to Klaus Ertz for confirming the attribution of the present painting after examination of the painting in the original (a written certificate is available).

In the present painting, Jan Brueghel the Younger exhibits the entire splendour and joie de vivre of Flemish painting, with its typically brilliant colours and precision in the rendering of individual elements in genre-like, detailed compositions. Flora, the personification of Spring and Smell, reclines on a terrace surrounded by allegorically interpretable objects, animals, and flowers.

Ertz writes: “A putto clad in a shawl approaches Flora from the left, presenting her with a bouquet of flowers. To the putto’s left appears a black and white spotted hound peering towards the left at another naked putto, who is picking flowers from a bed. With his right hand, he is about to pluck a crown imperial. At the protagonists’ feet, the following motifs are scattered on the terrace ground from left to right as allusions to the sense of smell: a basket filled with flowers (mostly roses), an orange tree in an elaborately decorated cachepot, and a black and white spotted skunk suggesting malodour, followed by carnations, whose smell is not very pleasant either. In the lower right corner one can see ointment jars, flacons, decanters, and other utensils associated with the distillery of fragrances that have yet to be decoded. The composition is magnificently concluded on the right with the structure of a fantastic perfume distillery, with the products of this early alchemist plant arranged on several levels of shelves.

Ertz dates the present painting into the 1640s. He identified the figure painter as Frans Wouters, a student of Rubens’s. In order to corroborate the proposed date of execution, he refers to the following works by Jan Brueghel the Younger for comparison:

1. The Drunken Hercules Surrounded by Nymphs and Satyrs (private collection);
2. Allegory of Smell (American private collection);
3. Allegory of Hearing (sale Charpentier, Paris, 2 December 1955, lot 1); 4. The Triumph of Silenus (Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna).

We are grateful to Klaus Ertz for confirming the attribution of the present painting after examination of the painting in the original (a written certificate is available).

In the present painting, Jan Brueghel the Younger exhibits the entire splendour and joie de vivre of Flemish painting, with its typically brilliant colours and precision in the rendering of individual elements in genre-like, detailed compositions. Flora, the personification of Spring and Smell, reclines on a terrace surrounded by allegorically interpretable objects, animals, and flowers.

Ertz writes: “A putto clad in a shawl approaches Flora from the left, presenting her with a bouquet of flowers. To the putto’s left appears a black and white spotted hound peering towards the left at another naked putto, who is picking flowers from a bed. With his right hand, he is about to pluck a crown imperial. At the protagonists’ feet, the following motifs are scattered on the terrace ground from left to right as allusions to the sense of smell: a basket filled with flowers (mostly roses), an orange tree in an elaborately decorated cachepot, and a black and white spotted skunk suggesting malodour, followed by carnations, whose smell is not very pleasant either. In the lower right corner one can see ointment jars, flacons, decanters, and other utensils associated with the distillery of fragrances that have yet to be decoded. The composition is magnificently concluded on the right with the structure of a fantastic perfume distillery, with the products of this early alchemist plant arranged on several levels of shelves”.

Ertz dates the present painting into the 1640s. He identified the figure painter as Frans Wouters, a student of Rubens’s. In order to corroborate the proposed date of execution, he refers to the following works by Jan Brueghel the Younger for comparison:

1. The Drunken Hercules Surrounded by Nymphs and Satyrs (private collection);
2. Allegory of Smell (American private collection);
3. Allegory of Hearing (sale Charpentier, Paris, 2 December 1955, lot 1); 4. The Triumph of Silenus (Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna).