River Landscape with Travelers on a Road (Munich)
Object type | Painting |
Genre | Landscape |
Date | 1602 |
Dimensions | 33.3 x 45.8 cm |
Support | Copper |
Medium | Oil |
Signature | BRUEGHEL 1602 |
Our attribution | Jan Brueghel the Elder |
Other authorities | Ertz 2008-10, #12 Ertz 1979, #84 |
Location | Munich, Germany |
Collection | Alte Pinakothek |
Accession numbers | inv. #829 |
Tags | Traveling, River, Valley, Boat, Road |
Pretty good copy in Basel, Kunstmuseum, inv. #1089 (copper, 33 x 47.5) Ertz formerly attributed this one to Jan the Younger (Ertz #11) but again, if he was copying it in 1630s as Ertz suggests, how did he have access to a picture done 30 years earlier? Possibly this was one of the "unfinished plates" left by his father. Basel painting is now accepted by Ertz (Essen 1997, cat. #33); it still doesn't look that great to me. Some of the figures are just lousy. If the Basel painting is a Jan the Elder and not Younger, it is a workshop version.
Two further variants by unknown followers, one formerly Vienna, Gal. St. Lucas (panel, 38.5 x 57) and one Gal. de Boer, 1930 (panel, 24.5 x 34.5).
Group of farm girls here are adapted from [some study for] Pieter Bruegel's Prague Hay Harvest.