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拍品專文
Arguably one of the most famous Netherlandish drawings is Pieter Bruegel’s The painter and the connoisseur, the unforgettable depiction of an old, bearded and stern-looking artist, brush in hand and staring into a world of his own. Squeezed behind this sage, a younger, short-sighted man peers over his shoulder and seems ready to take some money out of a purse hanging from a belt, and probably offer to buy the piece the painter is working on. A connoisseur, a collector, a critic – this second figure seems unable to grasp the significance of the (invisible) work of art the painter is at work on. This meeting between a ‘modern Apelles’ and a ‘bespectacled pedant’ (E. Gombrich, ‘Dürer, Vives and and Bruegel’, in Album Amicorum J.G. van Gelder, The Hague, 1973, p. 134), represented in the satirical vein so beloved in Bruegel’s art, has become an emblem of the condition of the artist: visionary, solitary, misunderstood.
Bruegel’s original, which has been dated towards the very end of his career, around 1565, counts among the great treasures of the Albertina, Vienna (inv. 7500; see Mielke, op. cit., no. 60, fig. 60; Plomp, op. cit., no. 100, ill.; Sellink, op. cit., no. 145, ill.). Three copies other than the sheet offered here attest to the early admiration for the work: one, on good grounds believed to be by Jacob Hoefnagel (1575-1630) and dated 1602, in the Stichting P. and N. de Boer, Amsterdam (inv. B 520); one at the British Museum, London (inv. 1895,0915.1011); and one in a private collection, formerly in the collection of Vincent Korda, London, and sold Christie’s, London, 11 December 1990, lot 106 (Mielke, op. cit., p. 65, under no. 60, figs. 60c, 60d, 60b; for the Amsterdam version, see also Nonner, op. cit., no. 48, ill.; and Vignau-Wilberg, op. cit., pp. 501-502, no. C 6, fig. 1).
The attribution on the drawing under discussion to Jacob Savery (1565/1567-1603), recorded in an inscription which may date from the sixteenth or early seventeenth century, deserves consideration, although it cannot be proven. The draftsman produced an extremely faithful copy of the original, showing little personal style, and Savery, like his brother Roelant, was primarily active as a landscapist. He did make small landscape drawings in Bruegel’s style, probably as forgeries (N.M. Orenstein and M.C. Plomp, in exhib. cat., New York, op. cit., pp. 276-277, nos. 126-129, ill.), and is also associated with a group of more ambitious works now given to an artist named the Master of the Mountain Landscapes (Orenstein ibid., pp. 266-267, nos. 120-125, ill.). Drawn replicas and pastiches after Bruegel were made by many artists in the sixteenth and seventeenth century, among them his own son Jan Brueghel the Elder; of the copies of other drawings of figures can be mentioned two, in the Albertina (inv. 7865) and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (inv. 1975.131.172; see Mielke, op. cit., p. 63, under no. 57, p. 64, under no. 58, figs. 57a, 58a). Their existence is an important aspect of the reception of Bruegel’s work, and in particular of his drawings, and proof of the early recognition of his status as the greatest of Netherlandish sixteenth-century artists.
Bruegel’s original, which has been dated towards the very end of his career, around 1565, counts among the great treasures of the Albertina, Vienna (inv. 7500; see Mielke, op. cit., no. 60, fig. 60; Plomp, op. cit., no. 100, ill.; Sellink, op. cit., no. 145, ill.). Three copies other than the sheet offered here attest to the early admiration for the work: one, on good grounds believed to be by Jacob Hoefnagel (1575-1630) and dated 1602, in the Stichting P. and N. de Boer, Amsterdam (inv. B 520); one at the British Museum, London (inv. 1895,0915.1011); and one in a private collection, formerly in the collection of Vincent Korda, London, and sold Christie’s, London, 11 December 1990, lot 106 (Mielke, op. cit., p. 65, under no. 60, figs. 60c, 60d, 60b; for the Amsterdam version, see also Nonner, op. cit., no. 48, ill.; and Vignau-Wilberg, op. cit., pp. 501-502, no. C 6, fig. 1).
The attribution on the drawing under discussion to Jacob Savery (1565/1567-1603), recorded in an inscription which may date from the sixteenth or early seventeenth century, deserves consideration, although it cannot be proven. The draftsman produced an extremely faithful copy of the original, showing little personal style, and Savery, like his brother Roelant, was primarily active as a landscapist. He did make small landscape drawings in Bruegel’s style, probably as forgeries (N.M. Orenstein and M.C. Plomp, in exhib. cat., New York, op. cit., pp. 276-277, nos. 126-129, ill.), and is also associated with a group of more ambitious works now given to an artist named the Master of the Mountain Landscapes (Orenstein ibid., pp. 266-267, nos. 120-125, ill.). Drawn replicas and pastiches after Bruegel were made by many artists in the sixteenth and seventeenth century, among them his own son Jan Brueghel the Elder; of the copies of other drawings of figures can be mentioned two, in the Albertina (inv. 7865) and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (inv. 1975.131.172; see Mielke, op. cit., p. 63, under no. 57, p. 64, under no. 58, figs. 57a, 58a). Their existence is an important aspect of the reception of Bruegel’s work, and in particular of his drawings, and proof of the early recognition of his status as the greatest of Netherlandish sixteenth-century artists.