Winter Landscape with Angels Strewing Flowers
Object type | Painting |
Genre | Allegory |
Date | ca. 1605 |
Dimensions | 26.5 x 36 cm |
Support | Copper |
Medium | Oil |
Collaborators | Hans Rottenhammer |
Collectors/patrons | Federico Borromeo |
Our attribution | Jan Brueghel the Elder |
Other authorities | Ertz 2008-10, #532 Ertz 1979, #121 |
Location | Milan, Italy |
Collection | Ambrosiana |
Accession numbers | inv. #75/26 |
Tags | Winter, Horse, City, Rottenhammer, Borromeo, River, Putti, Landscape, Flowers, Cart |
External resources | Ambrosiana |
There have been conflicts about the date of this picture but I agree with Ertz, it must have been done ca. 1605 when Jan was in Antwerp and the collaboration happened at that distance. The landscape is in no way characteristic of Jan's Italian period. Pijl makes some suggestions about how this collaboration would have worked.
The angels in the sky here are repeated in several Baptism of Christ paintings by Rottenhammer; see for instance the Augsburg/Munich painting (#L760).
Borromeo discusses this work in the Musaeum: "Vi sono degli ucceletti dipinti dal Rathnamero, i quali nel rigore dell'inverno spargono gran copia di fiori, dipinti dal Brueghel. Qui sotto celasi un mistero. I fiori e i ghiacci rappresentanti della primavera e dell'inverno, gli estremi opposti di natura, simboleggiano la gloria del Cielo e la tristezza del soggiorno terrestre. Ma, per dire il vero, quando ordinai il quadro non pensavo affatto ne a simboli ne a misteri."