Italienate Landscape with Ruins and “Boules” Players
Artist/Maker
DatesMade: Made probably 17th century
Material / Technique
Dimensionsh x w: Mått 74 x 105 cm h x w x d: Ram 92 x 122 x 8 cm
Inventory numberNM 493
Other titlesTitle (sv): Italienskt ruinlandskap Title (en): Italienate Landscape with Ruins and “Boules” Players
DescriptionCatalogue raisonné: Description in Flemish paintings C. 1600-C. 1800 III, Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, 2010, cat.no. 38: Technical notes: The painting’s support is an oak panel (±0.4–0.6 cm thick) constructed of three horizontal, butt-joined, radial boards with horizontal grain. The panel has been thinned and a cradle attached. The joins were aligned with dowels now visible on the verso. Several horizontal checks extend from the upper right and lower left edges, varying in length between c. 2.8–49.7 cm. Dendrochronological examination and analysis has determined a felling date for the tree between c. 1592 and 1604. The wood originates from the Baltic region. Under the assumption of a median of 15 sapwood rings and a minimum of 2 years for seasoning of the wood, the most plausible date for use of the panel would be 1600 or later. The preparatory layers consist of a thick whiteish chalk ground followed by a cream-coloured layer that extends to the edges of the panel. Infrared reflectography revealed black underdrawing in some areas: a softly undulating line indicating the outlines of distant mountains on the horizon; a series of simple short-hand notations, near the horizon line, for additional rows of little cauliflower-shaped trees like those that dot the distant hills, were never executed. Paint was applied thickly in opaque layers, with slight impasto in the lights, the foliage, the clouds and slight brushmarking visible in the landscape, especially in the middle distance (grassy plain, hills, ruins). The small cauliflower- shaped trees in the middle distance are created through stippling with the brush. There are a few minor pentimenti in the clothing of the foreground figures: the trousers of the two men on the left were initially painted in a slightly wider shape, more “ballooning”; the crown of the hat worn by the second figure from the right was initially slightly larger. The painting underwent conservation treatment in 1846, 1861, 1929 and 1946. Provenance: KM 1816, no. 302 (as Paul Bril or Pieter van Laer). Bibliography: NM Cat. 1867, p. 50 (as possibly Pieter van Laer); Sander IV, p. 86; NM Cat. 1883, p. 72 (as anonymous Netherlandish master); NM Cat. 1958, p. 28 (as circle of Paul Bril); NM Cat. 1990, p. 403 (as anonymous Netherlandish master, 17th c); Berger 1993, pp. 216–217 (as circle of Paul Bril). This imaginary landscape in the Roman campagna reflects the late Roman easel paintings of Paul Bril. Paintings by Bril with picturesque views of the Roman countryside in which ancient ruins – imaginary structures as well as identifiable ruins – figure prominently exist dating from the beginning of the 17th century onwards. The earliest known example is the Capriccio of the Forum Romanum of 1600 in Dresden (Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister).1 Here is laid out the essential formula used in many early 17th-century images of Roman ruins: a dark repoussoir element introduces the viewer into the pictorial space; the figural action is carried out in the foreground or middle distance by relatively tiny staffage figures; and the architectural elements, functioning as theatrical stage flats, partially screen the view into the distance. Among recognizable ancient buildings, it is often the most damaged that are depicted. The present painting, which must be based on a lost example of Bril’s late landscapes, contains a view, on the left, of the towering Roman Tomb of Caecilia Metella (“Capo di Bove”) on the Via Appia outside Rome.2 Its frieze decoration of garlands hanging from bucrania is meticulously rendered, though the structure as a whole is apparently shown in a more advanced stage of deterioration than was actually the case in Bril’s own time. On the far left are some fanciful ancient ruins resembling those in popular mid- 16th-century print series by the Antwerp printmaker and publisher Hieronymus Cock featuring picturesque views of ancient Roman sites.3 Bril often organized the staffage figures in his late Roman landscapes around a scene of daily life set amidst the fragmentary ancient ruins. Similarly, in this painting, a game of “boules” – apparently an early form of the popular sport in which the balls thrown are flat stones – is in progress in the shadow of the crumbling tower-tomb bordered by trees in the left foreground, a scene filled with anecdotal detail that makes this landscape almost a genre scene. The artist has made his figures both natural and lively. The painting can be compared with Bril’s signed Landscape with Figures Playing Golf in Minneapolis (The Minneapolis Institute of Arts).4 Also comparable is a recently rediscovered Landscape with Ruins that was on the Swedish art market in 2004.5 The Minneapolis picture is dated 1624 and a similar date is feasible for the present painting (see Technical Notes). Although not executed by Bril himself, the present painting must have been painted by someone close to the master.6 CF 1 Oil on canvas, 21.5 x 29.5 cm, signed and dated “1600”, Dresden, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, inv. no. 858; see Faggin 1965, no. 23; Cat. Dresden 1972, no. 16; and Salerno 1977–1980, I, pp. 13, 19 fig. 2.6. A replica was published by Bodart 1970, II, fig. 108. 2 The circular structure of this ancient tower-tomb had been outfitted with medieval crenellations added c. 1300, as depicted in a drawing of the 1570s in Paris (Musée du Louvre, Département des arts graphiques, Cabinet de dessins, inv. no. 20.971), earlier attributed to Matthijs or Paul Bril. See Lugt 1949, I, p. 21 no. 379, pl. XXIV. 3 Cf. Hieronymus Cock, Praecipuae aliquot Romanae antiquitatis ruinarum monimenta…, set of 25 etchings (Antwerp 1551); for which see Hollstein 1954-, II, nos. 22–47, illus. Bril’s elder brother, Matthijs, is known to have made drawing copies after Cock’s etchings, which he apparently knew even before his departure for Rome, where he is first documented in 1581. See Brussels/Rome 1995, p. 95 no. 25. 4 Oil on canvas, 67.6 x 88.3 cm, signed and dated “1624”, Minneapolis, The Minneapolis Institute of Arts; see The Bulletin of the Minneapolis Institute of Art 29, no. 18 (1940): 86–88; and Faggin 1965, no. 59; and Cat. Minneapolis 1971, p. 137, no. 72. 5 Oil on canvas, 111 x 159 cm, Stockholm, Åmells, 2004 (Cat. 2004, no. 24). 6 Many landscapes by Bril and his studio exist in more than one version. Note, however, that Bril’s autograph easel paintings are almost exclusively painted on canvas and copper supports.[End]
Motif categoryLandscape
Collection
TechniquePainting
Object category
Keyword