Beskrivning: Se även beskrivning i den engelska versionen

Catalogue raisonné: Description in Flemish paintings C. 1600-C. 1800 III, Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, 2010, cat.no. 42: 

Technical notes: The painting’s support is a (cradled)
oak panel constructed of two horizontal, buttjoined,
radial boards with horizontal grain. Several
longer horizontal checks in the panel, including one
about 24 cm long along the top edge at the upper right,
two extending from the right edge just below centre
through the trees and house, one about 25 cm long, the
other about 30 cm, have been repaired. Dendrochronological
examination and analysis have determined a
felling date for the tree between c. 1598 and 1608. The
wood originates from the Baltic region. Under the
assumption of a median of 15 sapwood rings and 2 years
for seasoning of the wood, the most plausible date for use
of the panel would be 1606 or later.

Paint is applied in successive thin layers with low, fine
brushmarking, slightly impasted highlights and transparent
glazing. The wood grain of the support remains visible
through the extremely thin ground layer and paint
and the diagonal strokes of the “streaky” grey imprimatura
application are visible throughout. Stippling was
employed in the foliage of the trees at the left. Very fine
contours were applied around the figures using liquid
black paint. Infrared reflectography revealed a loosely
executed underdrawing in a dry medium that outlines the
composition and roughly indicates the position of houses,
windmills, boats and trees. Changes in the position of
the right wing of the large windmill at the left, of the tall
sail of a barge moored at the left, of a smaller boat
moored at the far right, and of the chapel in the middle
ground at the right, are visible between the drawn and
painted stages. Minor pentimenti in the outline of a figure
standing in one of the boats at the left and in the hat of a
figure (third from the right) seated in the boat at centre
right, are visible to the naked eye.

In general the paint and ground layers are in fairly
good condition. Abrasion is extensive, particularly in the
sky and water. There is extensive retouching from past
restorations along a vertical line at the centre of the panel
covering an area of damage, along the top and left edges
of the panel at the upper left, along the top edge at the
right, surrounding the larger boats on the right and the
silhouette of the town in the left background. An aged but
only slightly discoloured varnish layer is present. The
painting underwent conservation treatment in 1932 and
1961.
Provenance: Lovisa Ulrika 1760, no. 279; Gustav III
1792, no. 10; KM 1795, no. 183.

Exhibited: Stockholm 1977, no. 71 (as Jan Brueghel I).

Bibliography: Sander I, p. 104, and II, p. 102; NM
Cat. 1867, p. 25 (as Jan Brueghel I); Göthe 1887, p. 35
(as Jan Brueghel I or his manner); Göthe 1893, p. 44;
Granberg 1931, p. 17; NM Cat. 1958, p. 30 (as Jan
Brueghel I); Ertz 1979, p. 167 n. 162 (as copy after Jan
Brueghel I); Ertz 1984, under no. 56 on p. 235 (as copy
after Jan Brueghel II); NM Cat. 1990, p. 58 (as circle of
Jan Brueghel I).

This painting depicts a landscape dominated by a
mighty river winding its way towards a distant horizon
and by a large windmill on a hillock in the left foreground.
The landscape is filled with incidental anecdotal
detail. Both banks of the river are lined with
towns and villages teeming with human activity. On
the right are several cottages, a chapel and two more
windmills, and in the distance on the left is a town
with a church. Several spritsail barges are moored to
the river banks, rowing boats ferry people and animals
across the river, and in front of the large windmill in
the left foreground is a busy landing place, a favourite
motif in Jan I Brueghel’s river landscapes.
This new, more realistic, type of landscape, with a
fairly low horizon and a wedge-shaped composition, in
which a river, stream, or canal leads the eye of the
observer diagonally into depth, was created by Jan I
Brueghel about 1605. Around that time, the artist
arrived at a new conception of landscape, abandoning
the forced and artificial-looking spatial contrasts of his
earlier panoramic landscapes, while retaining their traditional
three-colour scheme (brown-green-blue).
Because of the enormous popularity of Jan’s small-scale
landscapes, a large number of copies were produced by
his followers. The present picture, which lacks the
atmospheric depiction of space, the precision and
astute observation of the staffage in autograph pictures
by Jan I, reflects an as yet unidentified original by the
artist of c. 1613, known through a 1651 engraving by
Wenzel Hollar1 and five painted copies, identical apart
from minor details of the staffage. In his 1979 monograph
on the artist, Ertz listed five paintings, including
the present painting, all of which he then regarded as
copies by followers after Jan’s lost original.2 He subsequently
revised his opinion, however, now attributing
the original version instead to Brueghel’s son and close
follower, Jan II, who supposedly combined elements of
his father’s various “Landscapes with Windmills”3 and
“River Landscapes”4 into a new composition of his
own. According to Ertz, the best of the painted versions,
a picture now at The Hague (Mauritshuis) –
which is sometimes attributed to Jan I – can actually be
identified as this original by Jan II, datable before 1630,
and that in a Scottish private collection (Midlothian,
Arniston House) is possibly an autograph replica, while
the present painting and the Turin example should be
regarded as copies after Jan II’s original at The Hague.5
However, Hollar’s engraving after Jan I, The Three
Windmills, shows the same basic composition – only in
reverse – as the painted versions, the only difference
being the paintings’ added staffage of figures, cottages,
barges and boats, so that the original composition must
surely still be attributed to Jan I. The present painting
would, thus, seem to be a copy of an unidentified original
attributable to Jan I by a 17th century follower or
imitator, possibly Peeter Gijsels.
CF
1 For Hollar’s print, inscribed “Iohan: Brueghel inv: W: Hollar fecit, 1651,
I: Meyssens excudit”, see Pennington 1982, cat. no. 1216; and Essen/Vienna
1997/1998, cat. no. 184, illus. Two preparatory drawings for the
engraving, in London and Paris, have been attributed to Jan Brueghel I:
London, B.M, No. 1921-1-29-1, for which see Hind 1923, no. 9; and
Paris, Musée du Louvre, for which see Lugt 1949, no. 484.
2 The copies (except NM 366) listed by Ertz are: 1) Oil on wood, 44 x 67
cm, inscribed “Iean Brueghel Arte Artem compensa[vit]”, Dienst voor’s
Rijks Verspreide Kunstvoorwerpen, inv. no. NK 1415, on loan to the
Mauritshuis, The Hague, from the Institut Collectie Nederland, Amsterdam;
2) Oil on wood, 50 x 70 cm, inscribed “Iean Brueghel Arte Artem
compensavit”, formerly Dresden, Coll. Posse – identical with the painting
now at The Hague, Mauritshuis; 3) Oil on copper, 15.3 x 21.2 cm,
Paris, Gallerie Pardo, 1961; 4) Oil on wood, 53 x 79 cm, Turin, Galleria
Sabauda, inv. no. 220; 5) Oil on wood, 52 x 80 cm, inscribed (false) “I.
BREVGHEL 160(6) or (8)”, Midlothian, Scotland, Arniston House; for
all of which see Ertz 1979, p. 167 n. 162, fig. 187.
3 For the large windmill on a hillock with a timber-reinforcement on one
side, cf. the Village Street of 1603 (Zurich, priv. coll.), or the Landscape
with Windmills of 1607 (Rome, Palazzo Spada), both by Jan Brueghel II;
for which see Ertz 1979, figs. 36 and 143.
4 Cf. the River Landscape with Landing Place of 1604 (Toledo, Ohio, Museum
of Art), that of 1606 in London (Wellington Museum), and that of c.
1605 in Nantes (Musée des Beaux-Arts), all by Jan Brueghel II; for which
see Ertz 1979, nos. 106, 135,and 120, figs. 23, 24 and 219.
5 See n. 2 above, and Ertz 1984, pp. 47, 234–236, cat.nos. 56, 57, colour pl.
12. [End]

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