Peasants singing, dancing and drinking in an interior

細節

Marten van Cleve (Antwerp c. 1527-1581)
Peasants singing, dancing and drinking in an interior
oil on panel
19½ x 27¼ in. (49.3 x 69.1 cm.)

來源

with Larsen, London, 1945, as Pieter Brueghel II.
Murray Urquhart, Well House, Meopham, Kent, 1965.

出版

Apollo, August 1945, p. 193, as Pieter Brueghel II.
G.T. Faggin, 'De genre-schilder Martin van Clef', Oud Holland, 80, 1965, p. 38, fig. 6, as Marten van Cleve.
K. Ertz, Pieter Brueghel der Jüngere, Lingen, 2000, I, pp. 529 and 536, no. 593, fig. 399, as Marten van Cleve.

注意事項

No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 17.5% will be added to the buyer's premium which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis

拍品專文

This is one of several works that have in the past frequently been associated with Pieter Brueghel II, but which are in fact by Marten van Cleve. Van Cleve's works are indeed related to those of Pieter II's workshop, but they are not always dependent on it: instead, the opposite was on occasion the case, Van Cleve being the older artist, of the same generation as Pieter Bruegel I, by whom he was influenced directly.

The subject matter is connected with the theme of Carnival and Lent associated particularly with Pieter I, but it is presented in a very different manner: Bruegel's famous treatment of the theme in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, depicts the two figures of King Carnival and Dame Lent engaging in a jousting tournament against each other; Van Cleve, by contrast, depicts the two figures entering the interior hand-in-hand, dancing to the music of a bagpiper. That motif recurs in a group of paintings depicting a Carnival scene given variously to Pieter II and Van Cleve, but more probably by the former (for the most recent discussion about which, see Ertz, op. cit., pp. 523-33); however Van Cleve's employment of it here is quite probably an innovation that was subsequently employed by whichever artist painted the latter works.

The festival depicted in the present picture is presumably the same as that in the aforementioned carnival scenes - certainly that would seem to be implied by the representation of King Carnival and Dame Lent. The representation in the latter pictures of the particular moment popularised by Jordaens in particular as 'The King Drinks' reveals that the occasion is the feast of Twelfth Night, celebrating the beginning of the 'fat' weeks of Epiphany before the fasting of Lent.