Beskrivning: Se även beskrivning i den engelska versionen

Catalogue 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]

Italienskt ruinlandskap