Brussels Art Auctions, from Belgium, sells on 9 October 2018 a "17th century Flemish School, in the manner of Brueghel" village market, a small work (28 by 37) estimated at 3,000 to 3,500 Euro.
While they probably intended Pieter Brueghel with the reference to a Brueghel, the work is actually based on a painting by Jan Breughel the Younger (1601-1678).
I first noticed it through this study, sold at
Sotheby's in 2008 for £115,000. The work for sale is a quasi identical copy, down to many of the colours, and has about the same size (24 by 35)
But only the lower portion (the part below the yellow line) is copied completely, and as far as I can see nothing from above the line.
A monotype drawing for this work also exists, as can be found on the website of
Onno Van Seggelen, a major dealer in Old Master drawings. This drawing lacks some figures which can be seen in the Sotheby's painting, and a few of those appear in the work for sale, so this drawing has no direct bearing on this copy, but is unusual and interesting to show anyway. That page gives us a date for the study: ca. 1620.
Sotheby's sold in 2009 one other version of this painting, now attributed to Jan Brueghel the Elder and Joos de Momper. A much larger work (59 by 87), it fetched £85,000. This one includes all of the study, and has the same winter setting.
So where does this land the work for sale? At first sight, it looks a lot worse than the Breughel, but this seems at least partly due to dirt on the painting, and the change of a winter setting to an autumn(?) setting, which makes everything a lot more brownish.
Identical details from both show how close the execution of the work for sale actually is to the original, down to most details and to the precision in it (remember that this isn't a large work).
To follow this work so closely, the artist needs to have had the original (the study or another version) in front of them, which coupled with the clear quality of the work increases the chances of this being a workshop copy, and not some random later copy. It should then be worth closer to 10,000 Euro.
UPDATE: the work has been thoroughly cleaned, and doesn't really look better. I don't know if the cleaning has revealed pre-existing problems, or whether some new ones have been created, but it hasn't become more attractive, which is a pity. It is now for sale with
Githart in Germany on 9 May 2020, with an estimate of 6,500 Euro. The description matches my above analysis (independently, or have they simply used my work, no idea...)
I superimposed the various versions digitally onto the one at Brussels Art Auctions, and the individual groups match perfectly (apart from a few minor details in the drawing that were already changed in the version at Sotheby's). It must have been traced, I cannot imagine such precision otherwise. Also interesting, although barely visible: In all other versions the smaller (upper) group of horses and cart has three horses, but in the one for sale the grey front horse is missing, or better: has been removed (a bit of leg and body are still visible). Again, a digital superimposition shows that the third horse would have been absolutely gigantic in this scene. So the artist must have copied the various groups first and then painted the village around it. When he realised that the front horse would not fit, he removed it.
ReplyDeleteHow fascinating - well spotted! But presumably the village scene was painted first and the figures were copied in on top - at which point the front horse did not fit its surroundings?
DeleteAnyway, a pentimento like this is certainly a strong indication that the study originated in Breughel's workshop. Shame that I didn't spot it when it was for sale, though!
Wow - it looks much better now. A proper winter scene (rather than muddy autumn) - like the other versions.
ReplyDeleteStrange that every version of the scene has a differnt number of pigs!
ReplyDeleteThank you for writing this post
ReplyDelete