Bruegel

Book Review: “Peasants and Proverbs: Pieter Brueghel the Younger as Moralist and Entrepreneur”

“Peasants and Proverbs: Pieter Brueghel the Younger as Moralist and Entrepreneur” – Edited by Robert Wenley, with Essays by Jamie L. Edwards, Ruth Bubb, and Christina Currie.  Published to accompany the exhibition at The Barber Institute of Fine Arts, Birmingham in association with Paul Holberton Publishing.

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This volume makes an excellent case regarding why Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s works became popular throughout Europe in the late 16^th and early 17^th centuries.  While Bruegel the Elder’s painted works were primarily in the private collections of the Pope and noble families, his eldest son, Pieter Brueghel the Younger, was producing copies of his father’s compositions for decades.  These works were largely bought by middle and upper-class European families, cementing Bruegel/Brueghel’s legacy and furthering the family’s “brand.”

It is rare for a museum exhibition to conduct a deep-dive into a single Brueghel the Younger work, which makes this show (and monograph) especially welcome.  The focus is on four works of the same subject, “Two Peasants binding Firewood.”  Thought to possibly be a model of a lost painting by Bruegel the Elder, Pieter the Younger painted multiple copies of this work, with four included in this exhibit (three of which are thought to come from Brueghel the Younger and his workshop). 

Mysteries surround “Two Peasants binding Firewood.” Why did this subject matter resonate with Europeans at the time? How many versions of the painting were created?  How were the copies made?  The essays in the monograph seek to answer these questions in fascinating detail. 

The book begins with a chapter detailing the life of Pieter Brueghel the Younger. Born in 1564, his famous father, Pieter Bruegel the Elder, died when Pieter the Younger was a young child.  Pieter the Younger moved to Antwerp and set up his own independent studio, specializing in reproductions of famous works by his father, as well as original compositions in the Elder Bruegel’s style.  Brueghel the Younger was assisted by a rotating group of one or two formal apprentices that entered his workshop every few years.  Brueghel the Younger and his assistants produced paintings at high volume throughout his career, with Pieter living a long life, dying in 1637/1638.   

The next chapter is Jamie L. Edward’s engaging essay detailing the history of peasants in Bruegel the Elder and Brueghel the Younger’s works.  Interestingly, the meaning of the painting at the center of the exhibit, “Two Peasants binding Firewood,” cannot be ascertained with certainty, but can be surmised based on the appearance of similar peasants in other Bruegel works.  Of the two peasants prominent in the painting, the tall thin peasant, wearing a bandage around his head, has been identified as a reference to the proverb ‘he has a toothache at someone,’ meaning someone that deceives or is a malingerer.  The second peasant, stout and dressed in red pants, represents a stock ‘type’ which can frequently be found in peasant wedding paintings of the time.  One likely reading of the painting is that it depicts two peasants who have been caught in the act of stealing firewood. 

The chapter by Christina Currie and Ruth Bubb focuses on an analysis of the two other extant rectangular versions of “Two Peasants binding Firewood,” (one from a Belgium private collection and the other at the National Gallery, Prague), comparing them to the version at the Barber Institute.  A surprising finding of the dendrochronological analysis of the painting at the Barber Institute found that the tree used to fashion the board used in the painting was cut down between ~1449 and 1481.  The authors identify the creator of the panel through a maker’s mark on the reverse of the painting.  The panel maker was active from 1589 – c.1621, meaning that the panel was likely painted during this time frame.  Interestingly, this means that the tree was stored for well over 100 years before being used by the panel-maker to create the board used by Brueghel the Younger.

Brueghel typically made his works by transferring images via a cartoon to the prepared panel through pouncing, which involved rubbing a small porous bag containing black pigment over holes pricked in an outline of the painting (called a cartoon) onto the prepared blank surface of the panel.  The dots that remained were connected via black graphite pencil, and the pigment (dots) wiped away.  The paint layer was then placed on top of the underdrawing.

The authors review each of the three rectangular versions, identifying two as autograph versions by Pieter the Younger and his studio.  The authors make a compelling case for the version of the painting now in Prague being created outside of Pieter the Younger’s studio.  This is due to several reasons, including the lack of underdrawing.  The Prague version is also more thickly painted and has relatively crude color-blending in the faces.  Some colors in the painting are also different, with light blue rather than pink used for the color of the jacket of the plump peasant.

The final section of the monograph contains the catalog of works in the exhibition.  The detailed description and wonderfully-produced images allow the reader to analyze them individually as well as to compare and contrast them.  For example, one version of the painting seems to show the thin peasant with his mouth open, showing his few remaining teeth. 

Particularly interesting is the smaller, round version of the painting, said to have been painted by Brueghel the Younger later in his career, using free hand, and not a cartoon.  This version depicts the two peasants with much smaller heads, in a loose, free-hand manner. 

The description of the paintings and their differences is fascinating, with the reader coming away with a good understanding of how the paintings were created and who likely painted them.  Readers of the monograph will learn the fascinating history of the Bruegel/Brueghel family along with a compelling explanation regarding how Brueghel the Younger continued and enhanced his family’s reputation in the first part of the 17^th century. 

Event Preview – “The Bruegel Success Story,” 12-14 September 2018

We were fortunate enough to obtain an exclusive preview of the upcoming event, “The Bruegel Success Story,” to be held 12-14 September 2018 in Brussels, Belgium.  (http://conf.kikirpa.be/bruegel2018/) This can’t-miss conference kicks off a number of activities celebrating the life and work of Pieter Bruegel the Elder, who died 450 years ago.  We corresponded with one of the conference organizers, Dr. Christina Currie, Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage (KIK-IRPA), who gave us this exciting preview of the conference:

1) What led to focusing on Bruegel and his family for this conference?

The year 2019 is the 450th anniversary of Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s death. In Belgium and in Vienna, this is being marked by a series of events that will celebrate his career and his influence on later generations. The Bruegel Success Story conference, organised by the Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage (KIK-IRPA) in collaboration with the Royal Museums of Fine Arts in Belgium, will kick off this season of activities and will give a riveting context for all the subsequent Bruegel themed happenings.

2) What will attendees of the conference learn?

Attendees will be exposed to the very latest in Bruegel research through the eyes of experts from all around the world. Eminent keynote speakers Leen Huet (Belgium), Elizabeth Honig (USA) and Matt Kavaler (Canada) will introduce each of the three days. Over the course of the conference, presentations will cover the life and work of Pieter Bruegel the Elder as well as that of his artistic progeny, including the astonishingly exact replicas of his paintings produced by his elder son Pieter Brueghel the Younger and the exquisite paintings of his younger son Jan Brueghel the Elder. Fascinating new findings on the creative process of Bruegel the Elder as well as that of his dynasty will be presented for the first time, thanks to new high resolution scientific imagery. But the conference does not neglect the essential meaning behind these beautiful works of art. Several speakers will concentrate specifically on the interpretation of Bruegel’s paintings and drawings, which can be quite subversive when seen in an historical context. Interesting new facts about the life, family and homes of the Bruegel family will also be revealed.

3) Who should attend this conference?

The Bruegel Success Story is intended for all art lovers with an interest in Flemish painting and particularly those attracted to Bruegelian themes such as peasant dances, landscapes, proverbs and maniacal scenes. Students of art history, art historians, restorers and collectors should not pass up this opportunity.

3) There are a number of papers focusing on Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s painting “Dulle Griet.” Why is that painting receiving attention now?

The Dulle Griet, in the collection of the Mayer van den Bergh Museum in Antwerp, has just undergone the most thorough conservation treatment in its recent history. This has brought to light many original features that were previously hidden behind a murky brown varnish and overpaint. The restoration, carried out at the Royal Institute for Cultural Institute in Brussels, was accompanied by in-depth technical examination that resulted in fascinating discoveries about Bruegel the Elder’s creative process. The conference attendees will hear how this great artist conceived, developed and painted this bizarre macabre composition. Leen Huet, one of the keynote speakers and author of a sensational recent biography on Bruegel the Elder, will delve into the hidden meaning behind the Dulle Griet.

4) One of the biggest bombshells in recent years was the revelation in your book (“The Brueg(h)el Phenomenon”) that Bruegel the Elder’s two versions of “Landscape with the Fall of Icarus” were not painted by Bruegel the Elder. Will there be similar surprises unveiled at the conference?

I can say that attributions will be debated during the conference. This is always the case when a group of experts on a particular artist or dynasty get together. And it can lead to sparks flying as opinions naturally diverge!

5) There has also been a good deal of investigation into Bruegel’s extended family lately.  What will attendees learn about Bruegel’s family at the conference?

Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s paintings were so loved that his son and heir Pieter Brueghel the Younger made his entire career out of producing replicas for an insatiable art market in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century. Jan Brueghel, his younger brother, updated the family tradition, branching out into flower paintings, allegories and mythological themes. The next generation produced several renowned painters too, including Abraham Brueghel, who traded on the family name. The paintings of the Bruegel dynasty, as well as those of lesser-known artists working in the Bruegel tradition in the Low Countries and abroad, will feature amongst the exciting new material presented during the conference.

“Children’s Games” Variant – What Do We Know?

Over the past few months we have had an opportunity to study an interesting “Children’s Games” variant.

We have studied the infrared reflectography image taken, as well as an X-ray image and several images created with various light and dark shading.

Let’s review the images and discus what they reveal about the painting:

First, this image (below) clearly indicates that the painting is quite dirty through age and discoloration of varnish.

This image (below) with light raking from the right side make clear the few small places on the painting which have been cleaned, so the bright colors of the original panel come through, such as in the upper right corner where the sky has been cleaned and the middle left, where the young girl has been cleaned.

An ultraviolet light image (below)  shows clearly some of the damage to the painting that has occurred over the decades.  The most pronounced damage is along edge where the first and second panels were joined together.  There also is damage in the middle of the painting with a few scratches.

One of the mysteries that we are trying to solve with this analysis is to determine when the painting was created.  The image below of raking light on the back of the painting clearly shows that the 3 boards which comprise the painting were created with saw-type tools, and don’t appear to be created by a machine.

A recently published monograph “Frames and supports in 15th- and 16th-century southern netherlandish painting” by Hélène Verougstraete has been instructive in our analysis of the marks on the back of the panel.  This has been instructive relative to how the panel was created.  While none of the images in the monograph are an exact match, some, such as the figure a (page 33) appear to be somewhat close.

However, we aren’t able to date the panel with certainty based on this information.

The image below clearly shows the repair that panel has undergone, most noticeably the increased support that the panel has had to repair and support the joining of the first two panels, where the damage in the other panels can readily be seen.

We are continuing to examine this panel and look forward to sharing our findings here!

Bruegel’s Children’s Games – A Curious (Old) Copy Has Just Surfaced

Recently we’ve been given the opportunity to examine first hand a very interesting copy of Bruegel’s Children’s Games.  The painting is large – 28″ X 39″, seemingly painted on a single panel (or two panels), potentially painted on larch (birch).

Below is the original version from 1560

Below is the copy from ?

What makes this copy so interesting is how it diverges from Bruegel’s original.  There are many Children’s games that are missing from the copy, as seen in the illustrations below.

Figures that appear in both versions are in yellow.  Those not highlighted are missing from the curious copy:

This blog will document the research done on this painting to ascertain when it was painted, and potentially who painted it.

We love a detective hunt!

The Value of Attribution – A Brueghel Case study and a Potential $350K Payday

It comes to no surprise to any collector that a firm attribution to an painter positively impacts a painting’s value.  But what does this mean in the world of Bruegel / Brueghel?  The recent attribution of “Wine on St. Martin’s Day” to Bruegel the Elder from a previous attribution of Brueghel the Younger catipulted this painting’s value to 25M Euros if sold on the open market (1).  An upcoming auction for Brueghel the Younger’s “The Wedding Dance” at Palais Dorotheum on October 21, 2014 will test the value of attribution for his son, in one of Bruegel / Brueghel’s most popular painting motifs.

In February of last year at rather rough looking painting of “The Wedding Dance” was put up for auction at Bill Hood and Sons in Florida in the USA.

This work, “attributed to Brueghel the Younger” was estimated at $10,000, but on the day of the auction soared above the estimate to land at a sale price of $21,000.

In the time since the auction, the painting was carefully restored, and the owner (or Palais Dorotheum, the seller) worked with the preminant scholar in the area of Brueghel the Younger, Klaus Ertz, to determine whether the work was an autograph Brueghel the Younger.

The Dorotheum website explains the attribution, “The present painting was analysed using X-ray technology and infrared reflectology. The analysis found that the pigment matched that usually used by Pieter Brueghel the Younger. Furthermore, the manner of working is that of Pieter Brueghel; the wooden panel was prepared using a white chalk base and the imprimatura was applied on the diagonal using a wide brush, as is the case with most of Brueghel’s paintings. The entire composition was meticulously sketched on to the prepared panel. In the underdrawing there are multiple pentimenti.”  (The phrase “meticulously sketched” is interesting, since Christina Currie and Dominique Allart in “The Brueg(h)el Phenomenon” show that Brueghel the Younger and his workshop typically used pouncing to transfer images from the preparatory cartoon to the surface of the paining.  Hopefully Currie and Allart can examine this painting to tell us more about how the image was tranferred, since it is only one of two examples of this scene in round (“tondi”) form.)

The Dorotheum description concludes by stating, “The present painting is of an exceedingly high quality and should be considered among Pieter Brueghel the Younger’s masterpieces.”

In other words, the attribution raises the price from $21,000 to up to $378,000 (the high end of the sales estimate, which I think this painting will achieve.)

Below is an image of the restored patining on sale at the auction.

Happy bidding!!

(1) http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-11402594

Bruegel’s Mirror – Exhibition

A wonderful new exhibition at the Royal Cornwall Museum from September 20 to November 8 2014 explores Bruegel the Elder via art created by Laurence Smith.

From the introduction:

Pieter Bruegel the Elder (c.1525-1569) was a Flemish artist who illustrated

people’s everyday lives and the worlds they inhabited. His work is often seen

as being one of the earliest forms of social satire in art history.

In the drawing Nobody and Somebody (1558) the character of Nobody

is shown staring at himself in a mirror, below Bruegel has written the line

“Nobody looks at himself”. Bruegel loved to turn proverbs into pictures and in

doing so held his own mirror up to what he saw as the foolishness of society.

Bruegel was predominantly known for his large, colourful oil paintings of, what

were known as, ‘peasant scenes’. These were commissioned by wealthy

patrons and rarely seen in public. However, many of his drawings were made

into engravings allowing them to be reproduced and seen by a far wider

audience.

Laurence Smith has made a study of Bruegel’s little known graphic works and

turned some of these drawings and engravings into oil paintings whilst trying

to mirror the colour and energy of Bruegel’s paintings. Enlarged and vividly

coloured Bruegel’s highly detailed graphic images can now be seen like never

before.

Pieter Bruegel the Elder wanted to hold up a theatrical mirror in order for us to

see our own selves, with all our virtues and vices, reflected back at us.

Brueghel in the Broom Closet

Of course it is not unusual to find a Brueghel painting in a public art collection, or in a private museum, or, increasingly, in the residence of a wealthy citizen of Russia.  What is unusual is finding a Brueghel in an out of the way location.  In what is perhaps the strangest setting in which I’ve seen a Bruegel, recently I visited the Church of Saint-Severin Paris’ Latin Quarter knowing that this church had a large format Brueghel, The Crucifixion.

Upon entering the typically fairly dark interior of the Roman Catholic church, I scanned the walls for the painting.  I wasn’t surprised that I did not see it, since I expected that it might be in one of the small chapels of the church.  

After circling the church several times and not seeing the painting, I noticed an open door into a sort of closet, or anti-chamber, where there was activity.  It appeared that the church was preparing for a concert performance.

Amid the activity I stepped into the small room, scanned the walls, and much to my surprise, just above the door to another room, was the painting.  It hung approximately 15 feet above floor level and gleamed luminously.  While members of the choir were running in and out of the room, I stood back and took in the painting.  It was fantastic, large, and had the attributes of a typical Brueghel work.

The painting is similar to other versions of the painting, showing Christ and two others being crucified in a large format landscape.  A city extends further in the distance with the temple of Jerusalem.  A field of wheat can be viewed behind the figure on the left. In the background two peaks can be seen connected by a natural bridge. Marlier notes that in this version of the painting, the sky is darker than in other versions.  It is thought that this painting is a copy after a lost work by the elder Bruegel.

As the activity in the small church room was dying down, it appeared that a concert performer was preparing to lock the door and wanted me to leave.  I exited the room, and the door was closed behind me.

I wondered if my visit hadn’t coincided with musicians preparing for a performance, if I would have been able to see the painting.  It seemed like the door to this room was normally closed, and only happened to be open because of the performers preparing for the concert.

In life, as with seeing Bruegel/Brueghel paintings, timing is everything.  Particularly when there is a Brueghel in a broom closet-like setting.

Two Outstanding Bruegel-Related Paris Galleries: Galerie D’Art Saint-Honoré and De Jonckheere Gallery

Paris is home to the only two galleries that specialize in work by the family of Bruegel.  For those interested in Brueghel, these galleries are “can’t miss” opportunities.  Fortunately, during a visit to Paris earlier this year, I was able to tour both galleries.

Galerie D’Art Saint-Honoré

The Galerie has been in existence since 1984 when it was established by Monika Kruch.  I spent a wonderful afternoon with Jérôme Montcouquiol  discussing the Galerie and all things Bruegel.

Mr. Montcouquiol discussed with me the recently concluded and very well received exhibit “The Brueghel Dynasty”.  The exhibit not only included works from the Galerie, but several private collections contributed works to the exhibit.  Included in the exhibit were works from  by Jan the Elder, Jan the Younger, Pieter the Younger and others.  A highlight of the exhibit, and a work that can be seen in the Gallery, is “The Wedding Feast.”  This version differs from many others (and differs from the version painted by Bruegel the Elder) in that two figures can be seen in the loft in the top left portion of the painting.

We spoke about the Galerie’s upcoming exhibition in the Maastricht, Netherlands art fair, where the gallery exhibits each year.   Mr. Montcouquiol indicated that they are looking forward to another outstanding show. 

The gallery only acquires works of exceptional quality, and strives to showcase works of the Brueghel family as well as major works of other artists of the period.

Galerie De Jonckheere

Paris is one of two locations for Galerie De Jonckheere.  This galerie has been catering to Bruegel-related collectors for nearly 40 years.  I spent a lovely hour in the Galerie speaking with the staff.  The Galerie has had both large scale and more intimate Bruegel-related works, including a wonderful version of the Peasant Wedding Dance by Pieter the Younger (see below).  Collectors from North America, Europe and increasingly Russia frequent this gallery to view the latest additions to its collections.

Like many galleries, locating quality Bruegel-related works is difficult in this internet-connected environment.  After a new work is acquired, it is reviewed and cleaned to the gallery’s exacting specifications.  The works gracing the Galerie’s walls are of the highest standard.

The Galerie has experimented with exhibiting in New York (MANE) as a way to exposure new collectors to its work.  This sounds like an ideal way to ensure that new collectors are aware of the magnificence of the Bruegel family.

The Galerie uses its own expertise, with the extensive expertise of Georges and François De Jonckheere, as well as occasionally calling in experts to authenticate works.

In conclusion, both galleries offer outstanding works and are well worth a visit when in Paris.  If you aren’t able to visit Paris, the galleries have wonderful websites that can provide a fine view of the current paintings on offer.

Galerie D’Art Saint-Honoré: http://www.art-st-honore.com/en/

De Jonckheere Gallery: http://www.dejonckheere-gallery.com