Jan Brueghel the Elder, known as Velvet Brueghel... Lot 44

Jan Brueghel the Elder, known as Velvet Brueghel (Flemish, 1568-1625) and Jan II Brueghel (Flemish, 1601-1678) Village by a river Landscape with pier Pair of coppers. Height 18.5 Width 22.5 cm. Gilded carved wood frames, French work of the Louis XIV period. Provenance : - Collection of Mme X ; - Collection Roger Aubert, Besançon 1952 ; - Collection Louis Henri Girard (1881-1973) industrialist, Champagnol, Jura ; - by descent, private collection, Tours. Jan Brueghel The Elder and Jan Brueghel The Younger. Two oil on copper paintings depicting a Landscape with a wharf and a Village on a rivershore. In French Louis XIV carved giltwood frames. A PAIR OF BRUEGHEL, by the Turquin firm Jan Brueghel the Elder painted many scenes of harbors and fish markets, as well as river landscapes of the Scheldt, where he loved to describe the boats and the changing colors of the water in the background, the reflection of a sunbeam piercing through the clouds. The passage from one bank to the other and the payment of the ferry are often evoked. Boats are overloaded, passengers wait to dock after the crossing, goods are unloaded. These subjects were taken up by his son, who retained the subtle atmospheric rendering, the finesse of execution, the infinite scale of the landscape and the qualities of a miniaturist. Inspired by a pair in Louis XIV's collection Le Village au bord d'un fleuve is a reworking of the painting by Jan Brueghel the Elder in private collection (Klaus Ertz and Christa Nitze-Ertz, Jan Brueghel der Ältere (1568-1625), Luca Verlag Lingen, 2008, vol. I, p.309, no. 147). Another Jan Brueghel the Younger version of the latter, Landscape at the Pier, is known from the Poldi Pezzoli Museum in Milan (Klaus Ertz, Jan Brueghel der Jüngere, The Paintings with Oeuvre Catalogue, Luca Verlag Ed., 1984, vol. 1, p. 229, no. 47). He was inspired by a painting by his father from 1604, preserved in a pair in the Musée de Nantes (Ertz 2008, op. cit., p. 256, no. 113), which had previously belonged to King Louis XIV, then deposited in Nantes in 1804. When the son finishes the father's paintings We would like to thank Dr. Ursula Härting for confirming the authenticity of these paintings by direct examination on April 17, 2024. She points out that Jan Brueghel the Elder played an important role in the Village by the River: he painted most of the trees and the figures on the riverbank, while those in the boat in the foreground were painted by his son. Family heritage In Paysage à l'embarcadère, she notes that the "foliage" of yellowed branches on the far right, as well as the one on the top right, can only belong to Jan I the Elder. The luminous gap in the background is of the highest quality. It links these paintings to a entry in Jan II Brueghel's diary, where it is stated that he twice bought four coppers begun by his father, although neither the subjects nor the state of completion are known. His father having died in 1625, he bought them, according to an 18th-century transcription of his diary, at the time of the division of the inheritance, probably around 1626-27, for 23 and 19 gulden (see Ursula Härting, Der buchhalterische Jan Brueghel der Jüngere (1601?1678) und sein Journal (ca. 1625?51), in Der Künstler als Buchhalter. Serielle Aufzeichnungen zu Leben und Werk, Petersberg 2024, pp. 53-66).