Landscape with Satyrs and Nymphs
Artist/Maker
Material / Technique
Dimensionsh x w: Mått 76 x 89 cm
Inventory numberNM 376
Other titlesTitle (sv): Landskap med satyrer och nymfer Title (en): Landscape with Satyrs and Nymphs
DescriptionCatalogue raisonné: Description in Flemish paintings C. 1600-C. 1800 III, Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, 2010, cat.no. 37: Technical notes: The painting’s support consists of a single piece of fine, dense, plain-weave linen. The original fabric support has been lined and the tacking edges trimmed on all sides. Broad cusping is visible along the top and bottom edges, faintly on the left. The preparatory layers consist of a thick, brushapplied chalk ground followed by a light brown imprimatura that extends to the trimmed edges and completely obscures the canvas texture. Paint is applied in opaque and semi-transparent layers, thinly in the landscape (foreground, rocks, trees and foliage, distant mountains), more thickly in the sky (with admixture of lead white), with slight impasto in the lights (foliage, flesh tones). The light brown imprimatura is used as a middle tone in the more thinly painted foreground landscape, where it shows through in places. The figures – the larger ones in the foreground as well as the background staffage – are painted over the landscape, freely executed without prior drawing. The painting is in very good condition. A layer of old varnish is present, but only slightly discoloured. Abrasion is moderate overall. A fine craquelure is visible in the thickly painted sky and in the flesh tones of the foreground figures. Retouching along the edges covers abrasion and losses of ground and paint layers. Scattered small retouches occur in the landscape and sky, but not in the figures. The painting underwent conservation treatment in 1870, 1871 and 1982. Provenance: KM 1816, no. 405 (as Paul Bril). Bibliography: NM Cat. 1867, p. 26 (as Paul Bril); Sander IV, p. 89; NM Cat. 1883, p. 32; Göthe 1887, p. 85 (as anonymous Flemish Master); Göthe 1893, p. 105; Göthe 1910, pp. 118–119; NM Cat. 1958, p. 103 (as Alexander Keirincx); NM Cat. 1990, p. 187. In a clearing in the foreground of a verdant bucolic landscape, dominated by a tall central tree in full foliage, a gay company of nymphs and satyrs cavort, dancing and making music, while a small satyr boy relieves himself nearby. Offering a contrast with the low-lying darkened foreground and framing rocky outcropping on the left-hand side, the lighted, atmospheric middle ground features a pond or stream, with further tiny figures of nymphs and satyrs disporting themselves in its placid waters or resting on the sandy banks. The colours of the landscape are richly and subtly variegated, the whole unified by a soft greenish light. On the right-hand side is a hazy view of bluish mountains in the far distance. The painting entered the collection in the early 19th century as a work attributed to Paul Bril, but was later, erroneously, reattributed to the Dutch landscapist Alexander Keirincx. Keirincx’s distinctive, mannered treatment of rhythmically undulating trees with decorative, pendulous foliage is, however, quite unlike the type of the monumental central tree with soft, cottonwool foliage in the present picture. Instead, this atmospheric landscape seems clearly derived from the more “naturalistic” late examples of Bril’s idyllic pond landscapes, such as the Diana and Callisto in London (The National Gallery),1 the Landscape with Nymphs and Satyrs of 1623 in Oberlin, Ohio (Allen Memorial Art Museum),2 and the Landscape with Tobias and the Angel of 1624 (formerly Dresden, Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister),3 that present a blend of Flemish and Italian traditions, influenced as much by the classical landscapes of Girolamo Muziano and Annibale Carracci, as by the new poetic landscape vision introduced, in the early 1600s, by the Italianate German painter Adam Elsheimer. With the emancipation of distinct genres of painting in the course of the 16th century, collaborations between independent masters became a common practice, especially in the domain of landscape painting. Bril himself is known to have frequently collaborated with different figure painters, creating in the midst of his landscapes a small stage, as it were, for the staffage to be filled in by another hand.4 Similarly, all the figures in the Stockholm painting – including the proportionately larger ones of a dancing nymph with fluttering drapery and the swarthy satyrs in the immediate foreground – were added after the landscape had been painted (see Technical Notes). They can be attributed to the eclectic Flemish painter Adriaen van Stalbemt by comparison with those in his signed works such as the Bril-influenced Drunkenness of Bacchus (formerly Paris, Galerie Heim-Gairac, 1953),5 and the Triumph of David of 1618–1619 in Madrid (Museo Nacional del Prado), a collaborative work co-signed with Pieter Brueghel II.6 While no Italian sojourn is documented for Stalbemt, his beginnings as an artist are shrouded in mystery and many of his earlier pictures reveal strong influences of Elsheimer as well as Bril.7 The addition of the figures to the present landscape could provide an argument for a hypothetical Italian sojourn of the artist – which would have had to take place prior to his enrolment in the Antwerp painters’ guild, at the age of 29, in 1609 − where he would have come into contact with the influential Roman artistic circle that included such Northern artists as Bril, Elsheimer and Jan Brueghel I. CF 1 Oil on wood, 49.5 x 72.4 cm, probably 1620s, London, The National Gallery, Sir Claude Phillips Bequest 1924, inv. no. 4029. 2 Oil on canvas, 70.5 x 103.2 cm, signed and dated “1623”, Oberlin, Ohio, Allen Memorial Art Museum, inv. no. 53.257; for which see Stechow 1954–1955; Faggin 1965, pp. 24, 33, no. 67; Salerno 1977–1980, I, pp. 16, 28, fig. 220; III, p. 1005, n. 52; Boston/Toledo, Ohio, 1993/94, pp. 470–471 no. 85, illus. 3 Oil on canvas, 76.5 x 101 cm, signed and dated “1624”, formerly Dresden, Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, inv. no. 861; for which see Stechow 1954–1955, p. 29, fig. 5; and Faggin 1965, p. 31, no. 24. 4 See Pijl 1998. 5 Oil on wood, 54.5 x 74.5 cm, formerly Paris, Galerie Heim-Gairac, 1953 (cat. 1953, no. 39, fig. 7); see Andrews 1973, p. 305; and a photograph on file at the RKD, The Hague. 6 Oil on wood, 88 x 216 cm, signed “P. Breughel Fe. 1618” and “AV STALBEMT Fe. Ao 1619”, Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado, inv. no.1782; for which see Andrews 1973, pp. 302–305, fig. 51; and Díaz Padrón 2003, 7 See Andrews 1973, esp. p. 306 [End]
Motif categoryLandscape
Collection
TechniquePainting
Object category
Keyword