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拍品專文
Jan Brueghel the Elder was one of the finest landscapists in seventeenth-century Flanders and his work was avidly sought by collectors across Europe in his own lifetime. The artist spent the first half of the 1590s in Italy and it was in Rome, where he lived between 1592 and 1594, that he met Cardinal Federico Borromeo, who was to become a lifelong friend and patron and may also have introduced him to Cardinal Benedetto Giustiniani, who likewise owned no fewer than six works by the artist. A trip to Prague in 1604 introduced Brueghel to Emperor Rudolf II, whose penchant for finely wrought works of art ensured he would likewise become a patron. Interest in Brueghel’s work extended as far east as Poland, where King Sigismund III likewise commissioned paintings from the artist.
Dated 1619, Brueghel executed this painting during a period in which he enjoyed particular success among leading Flemish patrons. Though first appointed court painter to the Archdukes Albert and Isabella in Brussels in 1608, in 1618, a year before our painting, Brueghel contributed to one of the most significant commissions made on the Habsburg regents’ behalf. It was in that year that the Antwerp magistrates commissioned twelve of the city’s leading painters – including Sir Peter Paul Rubens, Frans Snyders, and Frans Francken II – to collaborate on an allegorical series of the Five Senses as gifts to them, works that were unfortunately destroyed by fire in 1713. By virtue of his status, Brueghel was selected to oversee the project.
This picture amply testifies to Brueghel’s consummate abilities at incidental narrative detail. In the central middle ground, two weary travelers approach a group of kneeling hermits and laypeople celebrating mass in a grotto. Despite the rustic setting, the seemingly makeshift space is outfitted with several sculptures, including a life-size depiction of Saint Christopher carrying the Christ Child; various paintings, the most prominent of which is the large-scale Crucifixion with saints above the altar; and numerous liturgical objects strung from garlands suspended along the cave’s ceiling. At lower left, two hermits converse with visitors. One is evidently a pilgrim on his way to or from Santiago de Compostela, owing to the scallop shells that embellish his grey mantle, while the other, a well-dressed gentleman, has only recently alighted from the handsome white horse in the painting’s foreground.
An array of spoliated stonework and a natural bridge enframing an expansive mountainous landscape divide these colourful vignettes from the more prosaic activities at right. There, one hermit feeds a donkey while a second pours food for an eagerly assembled group of fish. A third strains under the weight of a basket as he walks toward a humble refectory with several modest bowls laid out along a simple wooden table. In another chamber, a pair of hermits, one of whom warms his hands by the fire, put the finishing touches on the meal, while a bedstead visible at right completes the spartan monastic quarters.
Though the painting was unknown to Klaus Ertz, it belongs to a small group of fewer than a dozen known depictions of hermits in verdant landscapes by Brueghel (see in particular K. Ertz, Jan Brueghel der Ältere: Die Gemälde, II, Lingen, 2008-2010, pp. 598-609, nos. 278-287). The present painting, which is exceeded in scale only by the pendant pair executed in 1597 in collaboration with Gillis van Coninxloo in the Ambrosiana, Milan (inv. no. 67; Ertz, op. cit., nos. 281-282), was painted some two decades after the other works, each of which Ertz places between 1595 and 1602. Compositionally, the present painting has a number of affinities – notably the predominant central arch – with a smaller painting on copper of 1595, likewise in the Ambrosiana (inv. no. 75⁄27; Ertz, op. cit., no. 278), and, to a lesser extent, another copper of similar dimensions in the same institution (Ertz, op. cit., no. 280). To this group must be added another little copper in the Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan, from which the left portion of our painting is derived (fig. 1). The figural group of the standing priest with his back turned and kneeling parishioners are disposed in nearly identical fashion in both works (though with additions in the present painting). Similarly, details like the horse and groomsman have been adapted with slight changes.
Dated 1619, Brueghel executed this painting during a period in which he enjoyed particular success among leading Flemish patrons. Though first appointed court painter to the Archdukes Albert and Isabella in Brussels in 1608, in 1618, a year before our painting, Brueghel contributed to one of the most significant commissions made on the Habsburg regents’ behalf. It was in that year that the Antwerp magistrates commissioned twelve of the city’s leading painters – including Sir Peter Paul Rubens, Frans Snyders, and Frans Francken II – to collaborate on an allegorical series of the Five Senses as gifts to them, works that were unfortunately destroyed by fire in 1713. By virtue of his status, Brueghel was selected to oversee the project.
This picture amply testifies to Brueghel’s consummate abilities at incidental narrative detail. In the central middle ground, two weary travelers approach a group of kneeling hermits and laypeople celebrating mass in a grotto. Despite the rustic setting, the seemingly makeshift space is outfitted with several sculptures, including a life-size depiction of Saint Christopher carrying the Christ Child; various paintings, the most prominent of which is the large-scale Crucifixion with saints above the altar; and numerous liturgical objects strung from garlands suspended along the cave’s ceiling. At lower left, two hermits converse with visitors. One is evidently a pilgrim on his way to or from Santiago de Compostela, owing to the scallop shells that embellish his grey mantle, while the other, a well-dressed gentleman, has only recently alighted from the handsome white horse in the painting’s foreground.
An array of spoliated stonework and a natural bridge enframing an expansive mountainous landscape divide these colourful vignettes from the more prosaic activities at right. There, one hermit feeds a donkey while a second pours food for an eagerly assembled group of fish. A third strains under the weight of a basket as he walks toward a humble refectory with several modest bowls laid out along a simple wooden table. In another chamber, a pair of hermits, one of whom warms his hands by the fire, put the finishing touches on the meal, while a bedstead visible at right completes the spartan monastic quarters.
Though the painting was unknown to Klaus Ertz, it belongs to a small group of fewer than a dozen known depictions of hermits in verdant landscapes by Brueghel (see in particular K. Ertz, Jan Brueghel der Ältere: Die Gemälde, II, Lingen, 2008-2010, pp. 598-609, nos. 278-287). The present painting, which is exceeded in scale only by the pendant pair executed in 1597 in collaboration with Gillis van Coninxloo in the Ambrosiana, Milan (inv. no. 67; Ertz, op. cit., nos. 281-282), was painted some two decades after the other works, each of which Ertz places between 1595 and 1602. Compositionally, the present painting has a number of affinities – notably the predominant central arch – with a smaller painting on copper of 1595, likewise in the Ambrosiana (inv. no. 75⁄27; Ertz, op. cit., no. 278), and, to a lesser extent, another copper of similar dimensions in the same institution (Ertz, op. cit., no. 280). To this group must be added another little copper in the Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan, from which the left portion of our painting is derived (fig. 1). The figural group of the standing priest with his back turned and kneeling parishioners are disposed in nearly identical fashion in both works (though with additions in the present painting). Similarly, details like the horse and groomsman have been adapted with slight changes.