Please enable JavaScript in your browser.

Flowers in a Wooden Tub (Vienna)

Flowers in a Wooden Tub (Vienna)

Object type Painting
Genre Flower Still-Life and Nature Study
Date 1611
Dimensions 98 x 73 cm
Support Panel
Medium Oil
Our attribution Jan Brueghel the Elder
Other authorities Ertz 2008-10, #450
Ertz 1979, #144
Location Vienna, Austria
Collection Kunsthistorisches Museum
Accession numbers inv. #570
Tags Insects, Tub, Flowers
External resources Kunsthistorisches Museum
Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum, 1963 catalogue #74
Ertz 1979, cat. #144
Ertz 2008-10, cat. #450
Brenninkmeijer 1990, fig. 30 p. 247, Type VIII, 1611
Jan 1659 Brussels Royal Palace, inv. #225
Jul 1659 Vienna Probably Collection of Archduke Leopold Wilhelm, inv. #870
E.A. Honig
August 19, 2013

An unusually frequently-copied large flower painting. Fred Meijer (RKD) counts 13 such copies and suggests that many were produced by Jan the Younger and his studio. Here are the ones I know of:

  • A variant by Jan Brueghel the Elder or Jan Brueghel the Younger, (panel, 125 x 95.5 cm) exhibited in Laren, Singer Museum, 1963, cat. # 42, fig. 16.
  • A copy by Jan Brueghel the Younger (panel, 125.5 x 96 cm), Munich, Alte Pinakothek, cat. 1957, #824, cat. 1961, #824; this copy is attributed by Neumeister in Munich 2013 to the studio of Jan the Elder, and dated to around the same time as the Vienna original was produced. In his book on Jan the Younger, Ertz argues that this is the "original" copy by Jan the Younger, done in his father's studio before he left for Italy; the other "good" copies are then after this copy.
  • A copy by Jan Brueghel the Younger (64.5 x 49.8 cm), shown at TEFAF 1993 by Scheidwimmer, Munich, 1993.
  • A copy by Jan Brueghel the Younger (84.7 x 70.3 cm), sold Sotheby's, London, Dec. 11, 2003, # 56
  • A copy by Jan Brueghel the Younger (panel, 112 x 84 cm), shown in Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, cat. 1976, #A 3290, as atelier of Jan Brueghel the Elder.
  • A poor copy with a snail and tulip on the table (108 x 80 cm), Shown at the Straatsburg. Museum, 1954, cat. on still-lifes, #3
  • A copy by Jan Brueghel the Younger (104.5 x 76 cm), in Bucharest, Muzeul National de Arta al Romaniei, cat. 1981/82, #9.
  • A poor copy with squirrel by circle of Jan Brueghel the Younger (64.5 x 49.5 cm), sold Paris, Douot Montaigne, June 10, 1997, #12.
  • A poor copy attributed to circle of Jan Brueghel the Younger (115 x 81 cm) sold at auction, Pairs, Dec. 12, 1989, # 81, as atelier of Jan Brueghel the Younger.
  • A poor copy attributed to Jan Brueghel the Younger with tulip (102.5 x 67 cm), Galerie d'Art St. Honore, 2005
  • A very good copy by Jan Brueghel the Younger (panel, 64 x 48 cm), shown in 1960 exhibition, "Bloem en tuin" Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Ghent, #30.
  • Copy on the art market, Los Angeles (panel, 98 x 70.5)

It is interesting to note that these copies are sometimes of very different sizes.

Brenninkmeijer-de Rooij suggests that this is the painting mentioned in a letter of March 25, 1611, from Brueghel to Bianchi: he says that he has embarked upon a large painting "with surely a thousand flowers...."