River Landscape with Peasants

Artist/Maker

Material / Technique

Dimensionsh x w: Mått 35 x 46 cm h x w x d: Ram 51 x 60 x 5 cm

Inventory numberNM 678

AcqusitionTransferred 1866 from Kongl. Museum ( Gustaf III 1792)

Other titlesTitle (sv): Flodlandskap med bönder Title (en): River Landscape with Peasants Alternative title: Landscape with a Village and a Canal

DescriptionCatalogue raisonné: Description in Flemish paintings C. 1600-C. 1800 III, Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, 2010, cat.no. 196: Technical notes: The support consists of a rectangular copper plate with a thickness of less than 1mm. The plate has a high level of finish, and is free of any clue as to manufacture such as hammer marks or rolls. The upper right corner is slightly dented. A thin, brush-applied off-white ground is visible through the brushstrokes of the road in the right foreground. Examination with infrared reflectography did not reveal any evidence of underdrawing. Paint is applied thinly and smoothly, in opaque and translucent layers, with slightly impasted highlights, blended wet-into-wet, and with vigorous brushwork in the sky. Very fine contours were applied around the fig- ures with liquid black paint. A pentimento in the male figure on horseback in the right foreground, initially painted in a more upright position, is visible with infrared reflectography. The painting is in excellent condition, with minimal abrasion and scattered small losses discretely inpainted. A short diagonal scratch in the paint layer at the upper left, and a horizontal scratch near centre, have been retouched. The painting underwent conservation treatment in 1935. Provenance: Gustav III 1792, no. 278 (as Philips Wouwerman); KM 1795. Exhibited: Stockholm 1933, no. 47 (as David Vinckboons); Stockholm 2101, no. 94. Bibliography: Sander II, p. 127 no. 278; NM Cat. 1867, p. 49 (as David Vinckboons); Göthe 1887, p. 284 (as David Vinckboons?); Göthe 1893, p. 342 (as David Vinckboons?); NM Cat. 1958, p. 31 (as manner of Jan Brueghel I, possibly Pieter Gijsels); Ertz 1979, p. 180 n. 185, 573 under no. 96 (as unidentified follower of Jan Brueghel I); Ertz 1984, p. 223 no. 40, colour pl. 9 (as Jan Brueghel II); NM Cat. 1990, p. 59 (as manner of Jan Brueghel I); White 2007, p. 84 (as Jan Brueghel II). This painting depicts an intimate view of a landscape with a canal running through a typical Flemish village. The composition combines elements derived from various works by Jan Brueghel I, but does so in an entirely coherent and personal manner. The orthogonal composition, with its frontal view of a village canal, is directly based on an important new type of “modern” landscape showing intimate views of contemporary rural life developed by Jan Brueghel I in the early 1600s in a series of drawings and paintings, such as the Landscape with a Village Canal of c. 1602 in Paris (Institut Néerlandais, Fondation Custodia, Coll. F. Lugt),1 a painting that was on the Brussels art market in 1958 (present whereabouts unknown)2 and another in Zürich (David M. Koetser).3 In these works the horizon is lower than in Jan Brueghel I’s earlier panoramic landscapes, and therefore seems to be more at the level of the viewer’s eye, the figures are simpler, and, while the traditional three-colour scheme employed to suggest progression in space is retained, the forced and artificial- looking spatial contrasts have now disappeared. The present picture depicts individual motifs typical of Jan’s original compositions, such as the gabled cottages and the footbridge over the canal in the middle ground, the view of a church in the far distance, the rowing boat carrying passengers on the canal, the ducks and geese swimming in the water, and so forth. As in Jan Brueghel I’s drawing in Paris and the painting formerly at Brussels, the river in the present painting is confined to one half of the composition – but the right half, rather than the left, as in Jan Brueghel I’s works. The right half is occupied instead by a woodland view and a busy country road running along the canal, rather than a village street. The foreground area on the right is dominated by a majestic framing tree with decorative foliage partly cut off by the edge of the painting, and next to it is the seated figure of a woodcutter, both modelled after Jan Brueghel I’s painting Latona and the Lycean Peasants of 1601 in Frankfurt a. M. (Städelsches Kunstinstitut).4 Like Jan Brueghel I’s landscapes, the present painting is filled with narrative detail: for example, in the right foreground, a farmer and his wife returning from the market with empty baskets in a horse-drawn cart, and the woodcutter about to have his meal, his tools and hat lying next to him on the ground; in the village in the middle ground on the left, a man feeding his pigs, two men in animated conversation, a group of women washing laundry in the canal. A horse-drawn cart identical to that in this painting occurs in a composition frequently repeated by followers of Jan I, presumably free copies after the painting formerly at Brussels or its source,5 and as one of several figure studies in oil (Enschede, Rijksmuseum Twenthe) attributed by Ertz to the artist’s son, Jan Brueghel II.6 Together with Jan Brueghel I’s paintings of village streets, the compositional type represented by the present picture provided an important model for contemporary artists. Drawings in New York (The Pierpont Morgan Library and Museum) and Paris (Musée du Louvre, Département des arts graphiques, Cabinet des dessins), probably contemporary copies after Jan Brueghel I’s original drawing in Paris,7 and an etching of 1650 by Wenzel Hollar derived from the painting formerly at Brussels or its source,8 bear witness to the great interest of contemporary artists in these new compositional types. Ertz (1984) regarded the Stockholm painting as a work by Jan Brueghel II freely copied, about 1630, after his father’s compositions and motifs. He also listed what he believed to be an autograph variant version of the painting formerly in Rotterdam. 9 Recently, it was discovered that the present painting is signed with the monogram “A S”, probably that of the eclectic Antwerp landscapist and history painter Adriaen van Stalbemt. A painting that was on the French art market in 1989, River Landscape with Christ Healing the Blind,10 signed with the same monogram and attributed to Stalbemt, was clearly executed by the same hand as the present work. It contains the identical view of a village. Signed and dated works by Stalbemt are extremely rare, and his oeuvre shows great stylistic variety. His landscapes, mostly woodland scenes, such as the signed Landscape with Fables of 1620 in Antwerp (Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten) 11 or the recently attributed Landscape with the Creation of Eve in Budapest (Szépmüvészeti Múzeum)12 – characterized by a meticulous technique and preference for bright colours enhanced by vivid yellow and azure blue – were directly inspired by Jan Brueghel I. CF 1 Pen and brown ink, 183 x 267 mm, Paris, Institut Néerlandais, Fondation Custodia (Coll. F. Lugt), inv. no. 2232; for which see Essen/Vienna 1997/1998, cat. no. 155, illus. On this new type of landscape in Jan Brueghel I’s oeuvre, see Ertz 1979, pp. 58–62, 179–180, figs. 28, 30, 204–206. 2 Oil on copper, 18 x 27 cm, reportedly signed and dated “1602”, sale, Brussels, Palais des Beaux-Arts, 19–21 February 1958, lot 104; for which see Ertz 1979, pp. 58, 62, 80, 128, 142, 179, 214, 571 no. 85, fig. 28. As the present location of the painting is unknown, an attribution to Jan Brueghel I cannot be established with certainty. Copies of this composition are as follows: 1) oil on copper, 18 x 24 cm, Drumlanrig Castle, Scotland, Coll. Duke of Buccleuch; and 2) oil on copper, 19 x 23.5 cm, Copenhagen, Statens Museum for Kunst, inv. no. 704. Cf. a variant version known through several copies by followers of the artist: 1) oil on wood, 45 x 72 cm, Hannover, Niedersäschsisches Landesmuseum (as Théobald Michau); 2) oil on wood, 27 x 43 cm, sale, London, Sotheby’s, 13 February 1946, lot 40; 3) oil on wood, 57 x 86 cm, Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado, inv. no. 1455; and 4) oil on wood, 38 x 62 cm, The Hague, S. Nystad, 1961. See photographs on file at the RKD, The Hague. 3 Oil on copper, 18.5 x 23 cm, signed “BRVEGHEL”, Zürich, David M. Koetser; for which see Ertz 1979, pp. 42, 58, 62, 180, 573 no. 96, fig. 30. Ertz dated this painting “circa 1603”. Cf. a copy after Jan Brueghel I, oil on copper, 8.2 x 10.3 cm, in the British Royal Collections, Hampton Court, inv. no. V.R.inv., 1340; see White 2007, pp. 83–84 no. 17, repr in colour. 4 Oil on wood, 37 x 55 cm, signed and dated “1601”, Frankfurt a. M., Städelsches Kunstinstitut, inv. no. 1113; for which see Ertz 1979, no. 82, colour pl. 13; and Essen/Vienna/Antwerp 1997/1998, cat. no. 44 [Klaus Ertz], illus. in colour on p. 187. 5 See the variants in Hannover, and elsewhere, listed in n. 2 above. 6 Oil on canvas, 18 x 28 cm, Enschede, Rijksmuseum Twenthe, inv. no. 55; for which see Ertz 1984, p. 505 no. 336, illus. Ertz suggested a date in the late 1630s. 7 New York, The Pierpont Morgan Library and Museum, see Stampfle 1991, no. 45; and Paris, Musée du Louvre, see Lugt 1949, no. 497. 8 Etching, 178 x 228 mm, inscribed “Bruegel pinxit. W. Hollar fecit 1650”. see Parthey 1853, no. 1218, and Pennington 1982, no. 1218. 9 Oil on copper, 19.5 x 25.5 cm, Rotterdam, formerly Coll. F. N. Meuter; for which see Ertz 1984, cat. no. 53, illus. 10 Oil on wood, 23 x 35.5 cm, signed with the initials “A S” (in monogram), sale, Paris, Drouot, 27 June 1989, lot 6. See the photograph on file at the RKD, The Hague. 11 Oil on wood, 129 x 169 cm, signed “A. STALBEMT F 1620”, Antwerp, Kon. Museum voor Schone Kunsten, inv. no. 469. On Stalbemt as a landscape painter, see especially Zeuge van Manteuffel in Thieme-Becker 32, 1938, p. 453. 12 Oil on copper, 48.7 x 63.2 cm, Budapest, Szépmüvészeti Múzeum, inv. no. 547 (as circle of Jan Brueghel I). Attributed to Stalbemt by Klaus Ertz in Essen/Vienna/Antwerp 1997/1998, cat. no. 108, illus. in colour on p. 297.[End]

Motif categoryLandscape

Collection

MaterialCopper (Metal), Oil paint

TechniquePainting

Object category

Keyword