Circle of JAN BRUEGHEL I (1568-1625)

Property from THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART*, New York

Details

Circle of JAN BRUEGHEL I (1568-1625)

An extensive Landscape with Travellers on a Path in the foreground

signed with initials 'I.V.H'
oil on copper
7 x 10 3/8in. (17.8 x 26.3cm.)

Provenance

Gustave Rothan; sale, Victor Le Roy, Brussels, Dec. 19-21, 1866, lot 8
Etienne Le Roy, Brussels, 1866
Count Cornet de Ways Ruart de Vanêche, near Brussels, 1870
William T. Blodgett and John Taylor Johnston, New York 1870-1, from whom purchased by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York in 1871

Literature

F. Harck, Berichte und Mitteilungen aus Sammlungen und Museen, über Staatliche Kunstpflege und Restaurationen neue Funde, Reportorium für Kunstwissenschaft, XI, 1888, p. 74
H. James, The Metropolitan Museum's '1871 Purchase', The Painter's Eye, 1956, pp. 64-5
K. Baetjer, European Paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1980, I, p. 130; II, p. 367 illustrated
W. A. Liedtke, Flemish Paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1984, I, pp. 20-1; II, p. 26, pl. 10 as a 17th century copy after Jan Brueghel I
W. A. Liedtke, Flemish Paintings in America: A Survey of Early Netherlandish and Flemish Paintings in the Public Collections of North America, 1992, p. 20

Lot Essay

The present painting is one of at least four copies of a lost original which was probably in the collection of the Duc de Praslin. See K. Ertz, Jan Brueghel der Ältere, 1979, p. 598, no. 244, p.167, fig. 182 (the engraving). Ertz dates the original composition to 1611 on the basis of two variants in the Gemäldegalerie, Dresden and the Alte Pinakothek, Munich both dated to that year. A further two copies are in the Prado, Madrid (Inv. no. 1435) and the Ulster Museum, Belfast (Inv. no. 160)