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Lot Essay
The attribution of the present picture is uncertain. It has been technically examined by U.C.L. Painting Analysis Ltd. (its report is available for inspection) and found to be of the seventeenth century; the signature was stated to 'appear(s) to be contemporary with the painting' with the lettering homogeneous. Another version of the composition, and also inscribed with Brueghel's name, was offered at the Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels, 12 November 1998, lot 503. The support of that picture was of similar size to the present painting and was stamped with a trefoil leaf. As Willem van de Watering points out (letter of 2 December 1998) this is the mark of the Antwerp panel maker Michiel Claessens active from 1590-1637 (see J. van Damme, 'De Antwerpse Tafereelmakers en hun merken', Jaarboek van het Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten Antwerpen, 1990, p. 965, fig.1. etc.).
Willem van de Watering, who has studied the present work, believes that neither of the attributions given to the picture since 1971 - Pieter Brueghel II and Jacob Grimmer - is acceptable (letter of 2 December 1998). The Brussels picture was offered as attributed to Gillis
Mostaert (1,598), which van de Watering considers quite plausible by
comparison with Mostaert's Massacre of the Innocents in the
Thyssen-Bornemisza collection (see J.M. Pita Andrade and M. del Mar
Borobra Guerrero, Old Masters, Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum,
Madrid, 1992, pp. 264-5, no. 414, where catalogued as by Lucas van
Valckenborch (?), whose initials and date 1586 it bears; the attribution to Mostaert is due to Faggin in 1964). To propose that the present work and that offered recently in Brussels are the work of an artist influenced by Gillis Mostaert but working in Pieter Brueghel II's ambit would be as yet impossible to verify.
Willem van de Watering, who has studied the present work, believes that neither of the attributions given to the picture since 1971 - Pieter Brueghel II and Jacob Grimmer - is acceptable (letter of 2 December 1998). The Brussels picture was offered as attributed to Gillis
Mostaert (1,598), which van de Watering considers quite plausible by
comparison with Mostaert's Massacre of the Innocents in the
Thyssen-Bornemisza collection (see J.M. Pita Andrade and M. del Mar
Borobra Guerrero, Old Masters, Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum,
Madrid, 1992, pp. 264-5, no. 414, where catalogued as by Lucas van
Valckenborch (?), whose initials and date 1586 it bears; the attribution to Mostaert is due to Faggin in 1964). To propose that the present work and that offered recently in Brussels are the work of an artist influenced by Gillis Mostaert but working in Pieter Brueghel II's ambit would be as yet impossible to verify.