Pieter Brueghel II (Brussels 1564/5-1637/8 Antwerp)
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Pieter Brueghel II (Brussels 1564/5-1637/8 Antwerp)

The Seven Acts of Mercy

Details
Pieter Brueghel II (Brussels 1564/5-1637/8 Antwerp)
The Seven Acts of Mercy
signed '.P·BREVGHEL' (lower right)
oil on panel, stamped on the reverse with the coat-of-arms of the city of Antwerp and the maker's mark of a clover leaf
17 x 22 5/8 in. (43.1 x 57.5 cm.)
Provenance
Anon. Sale, Sotheby's, London, 21 April 1982, lot 57 (£60,000 to the present owner).
Literature
K. Ertz, Pieter Brueghel der Jüngere, Lingen, 2000, p. 393, no. E380, illustrated.
Special notice
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

Lot Essay

Regarded by Klaus Ertz in his monograph of the works of Pieter Brueghel II (loc. cit.), as a work 'von guter Qualität', datable to after 1616 (on the basis of a photograph), this is one of eight recorded versions of the present composition by Pieter II accepted by Ertz as unquestionably autograph, including those in the Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp, and the Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, Lisbon. The composition derives from an engraving (to which all of Pieter II's paintings of the subject face the same direction), probably by Philip Galle, in reverse of the drawing of 1559 by Pieter I in the Boymans-van Beuningen Museum, Rotterdam.

The seven acts depicted are: feeding the hungry (left foreground); clothing the naked (right foreground); relieving the thirsty (left middle ground); visiting the imprisoned (left background); burying the dead (centre background); giving shelter to the homeless (centre middle ground); and caring for the sick (right middle ground). These derived from Matthew, 25; 35-6: 'For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.'

Brueghel's paintings of this composition are, for the most part, very faithful to the engraving, save for the exclusion of the central figure of Charity, represented in both engraving and drawing as standing with a pelican on her head and a flaming heart in her hand (the two most common Christian symbols of charity). Similarly omitted are the belt (the symbol of ascetism) and fasces (a symbol of discipline and sorrow) from the platform on the lower right corner of the painting. It would appear, therefore, that Pieter II was avoiding the ostensibly religious connotations of his father's subject, concentrating instead on its implied civic responsibilities.

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