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Lot Essay
The subject is related in Matthew, II, 16.
The composition probably derives from a lost prototype by Martin van Cleve, to which a signed (?) drawing in the Print Room of the University of Gothingen is presumed to be related. The van Cleve is obviously closely related to the Pieter Brueghel I's original at Hampton Court.
Marlier, partly relying on Pieter Staes's manufacture of the copper panel, believed the present work to be by Jan Brueghel I, a view which seems not to have gained recent support. There are three signed examples by Pieter Brueghel II, and a good many other versions are also considered to be his work. However, Dr. Klaus Ertz in a certificate dated 11 January 1993 (a photostat of which is available to the purchaser) stated that in his view the landscape in the present work was executed by Pieter Brueghel II and the figures were by his younger brother Jan Brueghel I. According to Ertz this would be only the second extant work of collaboration by Pieter Brueghel II and another artist; he believes that it derived from an initiative of Jan Brueghel I as a special commission and - on the grounds of the date of manufacture of the support - that a date of execution of the present lot of 1605-1607 is 'ziemlich sicher'.
The composition probably derives from a lost prototype by Martin van Cleve, to which a signed (?) drawing in the Print Room of the University of Gothingen is presumed to be related. The van Cleve is obviously closely related to the Pieter Brueghel I's original at Hampton Court.
Marlier, partly relying on Pieter Staes's manufacture of the copper panel, believed the present work to be by Jan Brueghel I, a view which seems not to have gained recent support. There are three signed examples by Pieter Brueghel II, and a good many other versions are also considered to be his work. However, Dr. Klaus Ertz in a certificate dated 11 January 1993 (a photostat of which is available to the purchaser) stated that in his view the landscape in the present work was executed by Pieter Brueghel II and the figures were by his younger brother Jan Brueghel I. According to Ertz this would be only the second extant work of collaboration by Pieter Brueghel II and another artist; he believes that it derived from an initiative of Jan Brueghel I as a special commission and - on the grounds of the date of manufacture of the support - that a date of execution of the present lot of 1605-1607 is 'ziemlich sicher'.