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Lot Essay
Frans Verbeeck I (1510-1570) holds an important place in the history of Netherlandish painting as he falls between the activity of two of the greatest artists in that tradition, Hieronymous Bosch (1450-1516) and Pieter Bruegel I (c. 1525/30-1569). Karel van Mander records that Verbeeck was 'skilled in painting watercolour pieces in the manner of Bosch … From his hand we have some amusing peasant weddings and similar pleasantries’ (K. van Mander, Het schilder-boeck, Haarlem, 1604, fol. 228r: 'desen [Frans Verbeeck] was fraey van waterverwe te maken dinghen op zijn Ieroon Bos … Van hem ist datmen siet die drollige Boeren bruyloften en derghelijcke boosten’). Verbeeck’s reputation for originality has rivaled that of other Bosch followers, such as Pieter Huys and Jan Mandijn, since his earliest artistic production.
Only one signed painting by Frans Verbeeck I is known, Fool’s Market (Belgium, private collection), and numerous works are given to him and his workshop, which appears to have flourished in Mechelen throughout the 16th century and into the first decades of the 17th century. Other members of the Verbeeck family include Jan Verbeeck I (1520-1569), Jan Verbeeck II (1545-after 1619), and Frans Verbeeck II (active in the 17th century). The 2003 exhibition, De zotte schilders. Moraalridders van het penseel rond Bosch, Bruegel en Brouwer (Mechelen, Centrum voor Oude Kunst), made some strides in identifying individual hands associated with the workshop but compositions such as The Wedding Feast presented here remain in the canon of the overall workshop for the moment.
Professor Paul Vandenbroeck’s article 'Verbeeck’s Peasant Weddings: A Study of Iconography and Social Function’ (in Simiolus: Netherlands Quarterly for the History of Art, vol. 14, no. 2, 1984, pp. 79-124) sets forth the literary sources of this subject, the iconography of the peasant as the 'embodiment of unbridled behavior’ (op. cit., p. 85) in the art of the Low Countries at the time and the specific iconographical code contained in the subject, such as the stocky bride, the owl and mirror or 'ule-spiegle’, the bagpipers, master of ceremonies and torch bearer – all present here and in various combinations in the seven other versions of the subject in Vandenbroeck’s study. Significantly, five of the seven variants of this subject in that study are executed in watercolor or gouache on canvas. Notable among the versions is a work on panel fully attributed to Frans Verbeeck I (98.5 x 146.5 cm.; Bilbao, Museo de Bellas Artes) and a painting on canvas which is closest in composition to the present work (London art market, see Vandenbroeck, op. cit., p. 95, fig. 5).
Only one signed painting by Frans Verbeeck I is known, Fool’s Market (Belgium, private collection), and numerous works are given to him and his workshop, which appears to have flourished in Mechelen throughout the 16th century and into the first decades of the 17th century. Other members of the Verbeeck family include Jan Verbeeck I (1520-1569), Jan Verbeeck II (1545-after 1619), and Frans Verbeeck II (active in the 17th century). The 2003 exhibition, De zotte schilders. Moraalridders van het penseel rond Bosch, Bruegel en Brouwer (Mechelen, Centrum voor Oude Kunst), made some strides in identifying individual hands associated with the workshop but compositions such as The Wedding Feast presented here remain in the canon of the overall workshop for the moment.
Professor Paul Vandenbroeck’s article 'Verbeeck’s Peasant Weddings: A Study of Iconography and Social Function’ (in Simiolus: Netherlands Quarterly for the History of Art, vol. 14, no. 2, 1984, pp. 79-124) sets forth the literary sources of this subject, the iconography of the peasant as the 'embodiment of unbridled behavior’ (op. cit., p. 85) in the art of the Low Countries at the time and the specific iconographical code contained in the subject, such as the stocky bride, the owl and mirror or 'ule-spiegle’, the bagpipers, master of ceremonies and torch bearer – all present here and in various combinations in the seven other versions of the subject in Vandenbroeck’s study. Significantly, five of the seven variants of this subject in that study are executed in watercolor or gouache on canvas. Notable among the versions is a work on panel fully attributed to Frans Verbeeck I (98.5 x 146.5 cm.; Bilbao, Museo de Bellas Artes) and a painting on canvas which is closest in composition to the present work (London art market, see Vandenbroeck, op. cit., p. 95, fig. 5).