Christ Preaching from the Boat
Artist/Maker
DatesSigned: Sign. 1606
Material / Technique
Dimensionsh x w: Mått 82 x 121 cm h x w x d: Ram 103 x 142 x 8 cm
Inventory numberNM 2009
AcqusitionPurchase 1916 with funds contributed by Bukowski´s art dealership
Other titlesTitle (sv): Kristus predikar från båten Title (en): Christ Preaching from the Boat
DescriptionCatalogue raisonné: Description in Flemish paintings C. 1600-C. 1800 III, Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, 2010, cat.no. 41: Technical notes: The painting’s support consists of an oak panel constructed of three horizontal, butt-joined, tangential boards with horizontal grain. A cradle has been attached to the verso; there are several stressinduced horizontal checks in the panel, running parallel to the wood grain, one across the full width of the panel about a third of the way down from the top and two shorter ones at the left edge near centre. The size of the painting is nearly identical to that of another version of the composition now in Munich (Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Alte Pinakothek),1 indicating that the original dimensions have been retained. Dendrochronological examination and analysis have determined a felling date for the tree between c. 1593 and 1607. The wood originates from the region of Western Germany/the Netherlands. Under the assumption of a median of 17 sapwood rings and a minimum of 2 years for seasoning of the wood, the most plausible date for use of the panel would be 1605 or later. The preparatory layers consist of a thin, brush-applied, off-white ground, followed by a very thin, semi-transparent cool grey imprimatura applied with a broad, flat brush in diagonal strokes, producing a striated, or “streaky” appearance. Infrared reflectography partially revealed a dark underdrawing in the form of fine contour lines, apparently executed in a fluid medium either alone or over chalk, in the foreground figures and in the ships in the middle distance on the right; no drawing was visible in the background landscape, the architecture, or small-scale figures, in the middle- and far distance. The horizontal wood grain of the support remains visible in places through the thinly applied ground and paint layers. The artist’s signature at bottom centre is old and appears to be autograph, although some letters have been partially reinforced by a later hand; the date (“1606”) reportedly once seen below the artist’s signature – but probably spurious – has since become illegible.2 The painting is generally in good condition. A thick, discoloured, layer of old varnish is present. The varnish layer has a pronounced overall craquelure. Abrasion is moderate overall. The painting underwent conservation treatment in 1932, 1949, 1953 and 1991. provenance: Knut Michaelsson, Stockholm; (sale, Stockholm, H. Bukowski’s, 27 September 1916, lot 12, pl. 1, as Pieter Brueghel II); purchased in 1916 with funds contributed by Bukowski’s art dealership. exhibited: Stockholm 1977, no. 70 (as Jan Brueghel I). Stockholm 1999/2000, no. 12 (as Jan Brueghel I); Stockholm 2010, no. 52. bibliography: NM Cat. 1917, p. 53 (as possibly a collaborative work by Jan Brueghel I and Pieter Brueghel II); Sjöblom in NM Year Book 7, 1925, pp. 84–106; NM Cat. 1941, pp. 66–67 NM Cat. 1958, p. 30 (as Jan Brueghel I); Winner 1961, p. 192 (as a replica of Jan I’s original in Munich, Bayerische Staatsgemäldeslgn., Alte Pinakotek, inv. no. 187); Ertz 1979, pp. 172, 522 n. 165, 565 under no. 46, fig. 190 (as a copy after Jan I’s Munich original); Ertz 1984, pp. 40–41, 330–31 no. 166 (as a copy by Jan II Breughel after his father’s original in Munich); NM Cat. 1990, p. 57 (as Jan Brueghel I). The present composition depicts the New Testament scene of the “Calling of the Apostles”, Simon, Peter, Andrew, James and John (Mark 1:16–20; Luke 5:1–7).3 The Biblical narrative, which in reality took place on the Sea of Galilee, is transposed to an imaginary landscape that becomes a setting for a vivid and colourful kaleidoscope of human activities. The tiny figures of Christ and the four Apostles, who have already been called, are shown standing in a fishing boat in the middle ground, embedded among the busy exchanges of the port and the fish market in the foreground. Christ is preaching to a vast throng of people gathered in the harbour, in boats and on the shore. The main event is almost lost amidst the bustling activities of the port and the mass of small-scale figures in the middle ground, and the viewer’s attention is initially attracted to quite a different scene in the foreground, where a lively trade in freshly caught fish is going on.4Men and women of different nationalities and classes are gathered here. The dress of the figures sets the events in Brueghel’s own time and in an everyday situation, depicted with great narrative breadth. At the centre, a company of elegantly attired people, among them two richly dressed women who look straight at the viewer, are boldly contrasted with a group of poor, shabbily dressed figures on the left, who are grilling fish and warming themselves over a fire. The dress of the two women and the accompanying page boy identify them as members of the court. According to Renger, their prominent place in the composition vis-à-vis the biblical scene suggests that the contrast between worldliness and pious devotion is a main theme of the painting.5 In his series of panoramic landscapes, executed between 1595 and 1605, Brueghel drew on the earlier Netherlandish tradition of the “world landscape”, which originated in the first decades of the 16th century in the work of Joachim Patinir and Herri met de Bles.6 One function of the panoramic landscape was to provide an image of the variety and multiplicity of the world. Brueghel’s fame rested on his ability to portray the natural world with what was seen as unparalleled authenticity, and compositions such as the Harbour Scene, painted two years after his return from a six-year stay in Italy, were much sought after by the foremost collectors of his time. In this work Brueghel was able to combine close observation of the natural world with the kind of fantastic terrain that dominated 16th-century conventions of landscape painting. The grand panorama with a high horizon line, the artificial tripartite colour scheme, and the swarming masses of people are clearly reminiscent of the style of Jan’s father, Pieter Bruegel I, although Italian motifs can be identified in the topographical details. During his stay in Italy, between c. 1590 and 1596, Brueghel developed a type of coastal landscape – undoubtedly inspired by his own experience of the port of Naples in 1590 as well as by the work of Flemish expatriate landscapist Paul Bril – which was to serve as a point of departure for later works. Thus, the basic composition of the Harbour Scene – a wide wedge-shaped piece of land on the left leading to a distant, hazy mountainscape, the framing tree in the left foreground, the open sea at the right, and the distinctive rocky island – and the dramatic Mannerist light effects, are derived from the smallscale painting Coastal Landscape with the Sacrifice of Jonah of 1595 (Kettwig, Coll. H. Girardet), the artist’s first true “world landscape”, perhaps executed in Rome for a member of the Barberini family,7 and, as suggest by Gerszi, probably inspired by works of Bril, such as the drawing Coastal Bay with Cliffs (Paris, Musée du Louvre, Département des arts graphiques).8Two years later, in 1597, Brueghel re-used this compositional scheme in a small-scale variant of our painting that was on the British art market in 2002, simply changing the staffage of figures.9 Certain elements of the landscape are painted from life, but are freely combined. Thus, the tower-like structure on a hill at the left, for which Brueghel used sketch studies executed in Italy, can be recognized as a Roman monument, the Tomb of Scipio on the Via Appia. Winner (1961) has shown that Jan made reference to a drawing of 1593 copied after Matthijs Bril, Ruins on the Via Appia (Paris, Musée du Louvre, Département des arts graphiques).10 The view is slightly rotated in the painting, with the characteristic chimney appearing further to the left. The fantastic rocky island in the background, with its imposing fortified castle and flat spit of land with a windmill, includes a view of the Castel dell’Ovo in the Bay of Naples – a motif the artist used on a number of different occasions.11 Winner (1961) regarded the present painting as an autograph replica of Jan’s well-known painting of the subject, signed and dated 1598, in Munich (Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Alte Pinakothek).12 Indeed, Brueghel and his studio often repeated his compositions as replicas or variant versions, although this generally does not hold true of the ambitious, large-format multi-figure landscapes undertaken in the period around 1600. In his 1979 monograph on the artist, Ertz described the painting as a copy after Jan’s Munich original executed by a gifted follower of the artist. He pointed to its overall lack of lustre when compared to the brilliant and richly varied colours of the Munich painting and the “stiff and, in parts, dry and schematic painting of the middle- and background”. He correctly observed that, while the signature seems authentic or, at least, reveals an intimate knowledge of Jan’s work, the date of “1606” reportedly once inscribed below – but probably spurious (see Technical Notes) – does not fit in with the artist’s stylistic development.13 Subsequently, Ertz (1984) attributed the Stockholm painting to the artist’s son and follower, Jan Brueghel II, dating it just after 1625, the year that he took over his father’s Antwerp studio. Although the two paintings are nearly identical in size and compositional detail – with only minor variations in the staffage of figures and boats – there are some noticeable differences in colouring and structure. As Sjöblom (1925) first observed, the landscape of the Munich painting appears deeper and more atmospheric, the distance between the foreground zone and that containing the rocky island seems greater, and it also displays sharper, more dramatic contrasts between light and dark areas. While it lacks the dynamism and technical brilliance associated with Jan Brueghel I, the high quality of the execution of this painting, the precision and yet freedom in the rendering of most details, nevertheless suggest that it is a work by Jan I and his studio – presumably painted while he still had access to the original – rather than a later copy by the son. This attribution is also supported by the early dendrochronological dating of the panel, which was cut between c. 1593 and 1607 (see Technical Notes). CF 1 Oil on oak, 79.3 x 118.6 cm, signed “BREVGHEL 1598”, Munich, Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Alte Pinakothek, inv. No. 187; for which see Winner 1961, pp. 192, 202, n. 31; Ertz 1979, pp. 28, 33, 36, 38, 41 f., 78 f., 84, 90, 92–94, 172, 432–435, no. 46; Renger 1999; Renger and Denk 2002, pp. 85–87, illus.; Neumeister 2009, pp. 105–107, illus. 2 At the time of the sale of the painting at Bukowski’s, Stockholm, in 1916, the signature, which was regarded as autograph, was transcribed in the sale catalogue simply as “BRVEGHEL. F.” – no mention is made of a date. The date “1606”, which is probably spurious and has meanwhile become illegible, was subsequently reported in the literature only in 1941; see NM Cat. 1941, pp. 66–67. 3 The Gospel text reads as follows: “Now as He walked by the Sea of Galilee, He saw Simon and Andrew his brother casting a net into the sea: for they were fishers. And Jesus said unto them, Come ye after me, and I will make you to become fishers of men. And straightway they forsook their nets, and followed Him. And when He had gone a little farther thence, He saw James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother, who also were in the ship mending their nets. And straightway He called them: and they left their father Zebedee in the ship with the hired servants, and went after Him”. 4 Woollett recently suggested that Brueghel was influenced by 16th-century Antwerp artist Joachim Beuckelaer, whose fish markets similarly include Biblical subjects in the background and that some of the figures around the central foreground group in the present Harbour Scene are derived from Beuckelaer’s Miraculous Draught of Fishes of 1563 in Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Museum. See Woollett in Los Angeles/The Hague 2006, p. 189 under no. 25. 5 Renger 2002, p. 87. 6 On Brueghel’s early “world landscapes”, see Ertz 1979, pp. 28–41. 7 Oil on copper, 26 x 35 cm, signed “BRVEGHEL 1595”, Kettwig, Coll. Girardet; see Ertz 1979, pp. 28, 90, 92–93, 101, 108, 112, 114, 189, 559 no. 13, fig. 5; and Essen/Vienna/Antwerp 1997/98, cat. No. 49 [K. Ertz], illus. in colour p. 197. 8 See Essen/Vienna/Antwerp 1997/98, p. 440 under no. 153 [T.Gerszi]. For Bril’s drawing, reproduced in an engraving by Raphael Sadeler I (Holl.50), see Lugt 1949, cat. No. 392. 9 Oil on copper, 26.4 x 35.7 cm, signed and dated “1597”, London, Johnny van Haeften, 2002 (cat. 15, no.7); see Ertz 1979, pp. 28, 171, 172, 563 no. 33, fig. 7; and Brussels 1980, p. 184 no. 116, illus. 10 Winner 1961, 192, fig. 3. Cf. Landscape with the Tomb of Scipio, Paris, Fondation Custodia. 11 Cf. Dwgs. in Rotterdam, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen & Berlin, priv. coll.; and cf. the Large Fishmarket of 1603, Munich, Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Alte Pinakothek, inv. No. 1883, see Renger and Denk 2002, pp. 114–116, illus. 12 See n. 1 above. 13 See n. 2 above.
Motif categoryReligion/Mythology
Collection
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