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Lot Essay
In this exuberant still life by Jan Brueghel II, a floral arrangement comprising an extraordinary variety of blooms is displayed in a wooden tub, while butterflies flutter among the flowers and vegetation scattered around its base. The flowers include lilies, tulips, roses, irises, narcissi, cyclamen, fritillaries, hyacinths, cornflowers, viburnum, gladioli, snapdragons, pinks, daisies, snowdrops, forget-me-nots, violas, ranunculus and a sprig of rosemary, all surmounted by the striking Crown Imperial (Fritillaria imperialis), whose exotic form dominates the arrangement. The result is an improbably abundant bouquet, encompassing flowers that would not naturally bloom at the same time and creating an almost encyclopaedic display of rare species. The composition is arranged so that light falls from the left and the tub and flowers cast a shadow to the right, while the foliage upper-right corner lies almost entirely in shadow, enhancing the sense of depth. Set against a neutral dark background, the floral arrangement holds centre stage, with blossoms extending to the extremities of the picture plane.
This monumental upright floral still life belongs to a small group of eight similar paintings measuring approximately one metre or more in height that were included in Klaus Ertz’s catalogue raisonné (op. cit., 1984, nos. 264-68, 270-71a). These include works today in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (inv. no. A 3290); Alte Pinakothek, Munich (inv. no. 824); and Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp (inv. no. 643). In his 2008-10 updated catalogue raisonné on the artist’s father, Jan Brueghel the Elder, Ertz added a ninth painting to this group – today in the Muzeul National de Artă al României (inv. no. 8234⁄268; op. cit., fig. 450⁄2). Two further examples by the younger Brueghel have since appeared at auction (im Kinsky, Vienna, 16 June 2015, lot 40; Grisebach, Berlin, 9 July 2020, lot 28), the latter of which achieved 2,646,000 EUR, a world auction record for any still life by the artist.
As with the majority of the examples referenced above, the composition of this painting relates closely to the elder Brueghel’s famed Imperial Crown Bouquet of circa 1606-07 in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna (fig. 1). So high is the quality of the present painting that Ertz initially attributed it to the artist’s father, much as he did the somewhat larger example today in Munich. Only with his publication on the younger artist did Ertz revise his thinking, dating both paintings to about 1620, while the younger Brueghel was working in his father’s workshop and shortly before he left for Italy (op. cit., p. 430).
Of the known variants of the Vienna composition by Brueghel the Younger, the present painting hews most closely to the prototype in both scale and detail. The two paintings are executed on panels of identical height and are separated in width by less than 3 cm. More than 130 different flowers appear in these bouquets, a panoply of rare and expensive species that gives artistic form to contemporary interest in botany and scientific inquiry.
This monumental upright floral still life belongs to a small group of eight similar paintings measuring approximately one metre or more in height that were included in Klaus Ertz’s catalogue raisonné (op. cit., 1984, nos. 264-68, 270-71a). These include works today in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (inv. no. A 3290); Alte Pinakothek, Munich (inv. no. 824); and Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp (inv. no. 643). In his 2008-10 updated catalogue raisonné on the artist’s father, Jan Brueghel the Elder, Ertz added a ninth painting to this group – today in the Muzeul National de Artă al României (inv. no. 8234⁄268; op. cit., fig. 450⁄2). Two further examples by the younger Brueghel have since appeared at auction (im Kinsky, Vienna, 16 June 2015, lot 40; Grisebach, Berlin, 9 July 2020, lot 28), the latter of which achieved 2,646,000 EUR, a world auction record for any still life by the artist.
As with the majority of the examples referenced above, the composition of this painting relates closely to the elder Brueghel’s famed Imperial Crown Bouquet of circa 1606-07 in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna (fig. 1). So high is the quality of the present painting that Ertz initially attributed it to the artist’s father, much as he did the somewhat larger example today in Munich. Only with his publication on the younger artist did Ertz revise his thinking, dating both paintings to about 1620, while the younger Brueghel was working in his father’s workshop and shortly before he left for Italy (op. cit., p. 430).
Of the known variants of the Vienna composition by Brueghel the Younger, the present painting hews most closely to the prototype in both scale and detail. The two paintings are executed on panels of identical height and are separated in width by less than 3 cm. More than 130 different flowers appear in these bouquets, a panoply of rare and expensive species that gives artistic form to contemporary interest in botany and scientific inquiry.