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Lot Essay
Recorded in around twenty-five autograph versions by Dr Klaus Ertz, this subject was somewhat unusual in Brueghel’s wider oeuvre in not copying a composition either by his father, Pieter Bruegel the Elder (1525⁄30-1569), or by one of his father’s near-contemporaries, such as Marten van Cleve (1527-1581). Indeed, The Payment of the Tithes is noticeably different from Pieter the Elder’s compositional, figural and facial types, and its derivation has therefore been the subject of much discussion. Georges Marlier’s early death sadly prevented him from discussing the origins of this composition in his monograph on the artist, placing it simply in his sixth chapter devoted to 'Scènes et personnages divers' (Pierre Brueghel le Jeune, Brussels, 1969, pp. 435-440). It was his posthumous editor, Jacqueline Folie, who first tackled the question in print in the catalogue of the 1993 Bonnefanten Museum exhibition Pieter Brueghel de Jonge.
Folie proposed, on the basis of visual clues, that the lost prototype was French. One obvious indication was the fact that the calendar on the wall was written in French, although she conceded that the implication of this was undermined by the fact that French was at the time the language of the legal profession in the Netherlands. In addition, she noted that the peasants’ short beards and close-cropped hair, as well as their costumes, were of a type not seen at the time in the Southern Netherlands (see O. Rogeau, ‘Tu vas parler, Brueghel!’, Le Vif. L’Express, 14 June 2002, pp. 32-3). Folie’s proposal was supported by Ingeborg Krueger (‘“... nimbt Gelt, Buter, Hüner, Endten ...” Zu Darstellungen des Bauernadvocaten von Pieter Brueghel d.J. und anderen’, Das Rheinische Landesmuseum Bonn, Berichte aus der Arbeit des Museums, III, 1995, pp. 78-85). Klaus Ertz, in his 2000 catalogue raisonné of Brueghel’s work, further hypothesised that the original might have been a lost painting by the French artist Nicolas Baullery (1560-1630).
Brueghel’s various versions of The Payment of the Tithes can be divided into two main groups: those with woven straw matting on the back wall, and those that instead depict a dark cloth. The present painting is of the former type. An analysis of the two categories shows that, among dated versions, the compositional variant with plaited straw and the man on the far left with a grey-blue sleeve appears only in works dated 1615-1617. Conversely, those with a dark cloth and a man with a red sleeve appear from 1618-1626, with only two exceptions. One might therefore hypothesise that Brueghel decided, for reasons unknown, to change his composition and colour scheme in 1617⁄18. The type of the signature – P. BRVEGHEL rather than P. BREVGHEL – was one favoured by the painter only after around 1616 (see K. Ertz, Breughel-Brueghel: Pieter Breughel le Jeune (1564-1637⁄8) - Jan Brueghel l’Ancien (1568-1625), exhibition catalogue, Lingen, 1998, p. 19). Dated examples of this variant are significantly rarer than those with the curtain below the window: Ertz published five examples with rope (op. cit., nos. E489, E491-E494) and fourteen of the latter type (E490, E495-E507).
Traditionally identified as the collection of taxes or tithes, the subject has more recently been understood to represent the ramshackle offices of a country lawyer. This identification gains credence in light of near-contemporary documents that refer to versions of the painting. An inventory of 1627, recording the collection of one Antoinette Wiael, refers, for example, to ‘eenen franschen procureur op panel, … vanden jongen Peter Bruegel’ (‘a French prosecutor [lawyer] on panel… by the young Pieter Brueg[h]el’). Another inventory, recording the collection of Anna de Schot in 1663, again refers to the subject as representing a lawyer (D. de Vos, Stedlijke Musea Brugge: Catalogus Schilderijen 15de en 16de Eeuw, Bruges, 1979, p. 95).
Seated at the right of the composition, engrossed in the papers before him, the lawyer is dressed in the traditional cap of his profession. Tax – or tithe – collectors were not typically men with law degrees, and the setting of the office, with its hanging bags of papers, is familiar from those used for decrees and requests in lawsuits, rather than records of taxation, which would traditionally have been kept in large bound registers. The peasants gathering before him hold produce, hoping to use it to barter for his assistance. This again indicates that the scene is set in a lawyer’s office, rather than representing the collection of taxes, since produce such as eggs and chickens was often used as a means of paying a lawyer, whereas tithe payments typically consisted of quantities of grain (see N.Z. Davis, The Gift in Sixteenth-century France, Oxford, 2000, p. 260, note 3). The caricatural treatment of the figures may have been deliberately intended as a means of satirising the corruption of the law. Indeed, early engravings of the composition, first published in 1618 in Nuremberg by Paulus Fürst, were used to illustrate pamphlets attacking legal dishonesty.
Folie proposed, on the basis of visual clues, that the lost prototype was French. One obvious indication was the fact that the calendar on the wall was written in French, although she conceded that the implication of this was undermined by the fact that French was at the time the language of the legal profession in the Netherlands. In addition, she noted that the peasants’ short beards and close-cropped hair, as well as their costumes, were of a type not seen at the time in the Southern Netherlands (see O. Rogeau, ‘Tu vas parler, Brueghel!’, Le Vif. L’Express, 14 June 2002, pp. 32-3). Folie’s proposal was supported by Ingeborg Krueger (‘“... nimbt Gelt, Buter, Hüner, Endten ...” Zu Darstellungen des Bauernadvocaten von Pieter Brueghel d.J. und anderen’, Das Rheinische Landesmuseum Bonn, Berichte aus der Arbeit des Museums, III, 1995, pp. 78-85). Klaus Ertz, in his 2000 catalogue raisonné of Brueghel’s work, further hypothesised that the original might have been a lost painting by the French artist Nicolas Baullery (1560-1630).
Brueghel’s various versions of The Payment of the Tithes can be divided into two main groups: those with woven straw matting on the back wall, and those that instead depict a dark cloth. The present painting is of the former type. An analysis of the two categories shows that, among dated versions, the compositional variant with plaited straw and the man on the far left with a grey-blue sleeve appears only in works dated 1615-1617. Conversely, those with a dark cloth and a man with a red sleeve appear from 1618-1626, with only two exceptions. One might therefore hypothesise that Brueghel decided, for reasons unknown, to change his composition and colour scheme in 1617⁄18. The type of the signature – P. BRVEGHEL rather than P. BREVGHEL – was one favoured by the painter only after around 1616 (see K. Ertz, Breughel-Brueghel: Pieter Breughel le Jeune (1564-1637⁄8) - Jan Brueghel l’Ancien (1568-1625), exhibition catalogue, Lingen, 1998, p. 19). Dated examples of this variant are significantly rarer than those with the curtain below the window: Ertz published five examples with rope (op. cit., nos. E489, E491-E494) and fourteen of the latter type (E490, E495-E507).
Traditionally identified as the collection of taxes or tithes, the subject has more recently been understood to represent the ramshackle offices of a country lawyer. This identification gains credence in light of near-contemporary documents that refer to versions of the painting. An inventory of 1627, recording the collection of one Antoinette Wiael, refers, for example, to ‘eenen franschen procureur op panel, … vanden jongen Peter Bruegel’ (‘a French prosecutor [lawyer] on panel… by the young Pieter Brueg[h]el’). Another inventory, recording the collection of Anna de Schot in 1663, again refers to the subject as representing a lawyer (D. de Vos, Stedlijke Musea Brugge: Catalogus Schilderijen 15de en 16de Eeuw, Bruges, 1979, p. 95).
Seated at the right of the composition, engrossed in the papers before him, the lawyer is dressed in the traditional cap of his profession. Tax – or tithe – collectors were not typically men with law degrees, and the setting of the office, with its hanging bags of papers, is familiar from those used for decrees and requests in lawsuits, rather than records of taxation, which would traditionally have been kept in large bound registers. The peasants gathering before him hold produce, hoping to use it to barter for his assistance. This again indicates that the scene is set in a lawyer’s office, rather than representing the collection of taxes, since produce such as eggs and chickens was often used as a means of paying a lawyer, whereas tithe payments typically consisted of quantities of grain (see N.Z. Davis, The Gift in Sixteenth-century France, Oxford, 2000, p. 260, note 3). The caricatural treatment of the figures may have been deliberately intended as a means of satirising the corruption of the law. Indeed, early engravings of the composition, first published in 1618 in Nuremberg by Paulus Fürst, were used to illustrate pamphlets attacking legal dishonesty.