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Catalogue 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]

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