Landing Stage Near a Village (Sweden)
Object type | Painting |
Genre | Village, Town and Cityscape |
Date | ca. 1603 |
Dimensions | 25.6 x 36 cm |
Support | Copper |
Medium | Oil |
Signature | 160(0?) |
Our attribution | Produced in Jan Brueghel's Studio |
Other authorities | Ertz 2008-10, #112 Ertz 1979, #68 |
Location/Most Recent Sale | Sweden, formerly in the Koenig Collection |
Tags | House, Landing stage, River, Fishermen, Peasants, Boat |
From poor reproduction this seems like a very weak painting, although there was a much worse version of it sold at Sotheby's London in 1996!
Ertz had dated this painting to 1600 but whomever made it, it is more connected to Brueghel's somewhat later works. A very localized, domestic view.
In Ertz's catalogue of Jan the Younger he has, as #45, a reduced copy in Munich, Alte Pinakothek, inv. #1898 (copper, 21 x 29), signed and dated 1603 (a date that he notes must be wrong).
Later copy by follower in French private collection, copper, 19 x 23. Possibly autograph variant signed and dated 1612!--see Ertz #258.
From RKD photo if this is JB it's not one of his better efforts, the faces of figures have essentially no definition at all. Conclusion: there may have been a composition like this by JB some time around 1605, but this isn't it.
Here is a weird thing I notice on color repro in RKD voorordening. The sailboat coming up at far right has a picture on its sail and it looks to me like a madonna and child in a sort of mandorla. How likely is this?