Jan Brueghel the Younger

Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792), London (L.2364);

with Douwes Fine Art, Amsterdam, Jubileumtentoonstelling 1805-1955, 1955, no. 10;

with Martin Asscher, London, 1955;

Karel Emil or Charles Emil Duits (1882-1969), London,

thence by descent;

with Day & Faber, London,

where acquired

M. Winner, 'Zeichnungen des Alteren Jan Brueghel', Jahrbuch der Berliner Museen 3, 1961, p. 224, note 10, figs. 32-33;

A. Van Camp, 'Jan Brueghel the Younger and the Nuremberg drawings', in Delineavit et Sculpsit, no. 36, October 2013, p. 25 and p. 42, no. 8, reproduced

This atmospheric sheet is one of a group of similarly signed, inscribed and dated landscape drawings, known collectively as the "Nuremberg drawings". Although many of these sheets were historically ascribed to Jan Brueghel the Elder (1568-1625) they have now been convincingly reattributed, through the efforts of Matthias Winner and An Van Camp (see Literature), to his son, Jan Brueghel the Younger.

Van Camp notes that although the present work does not contain the same 'Neurenberg' inscription as many of the other sheets that make up this group - the location of Wetzlar is in fact some 300 kilometers from Nuremberg - this view must have been made by the young Brueghel on his way to Nuremberg from his hometown of Antwerp.¹ Van Camp also notes how the dates inscribed on these drawings (1616 and 1617) confused art historians into thinking that they were by Jan Brueghel the Elder, as his son was just fifteen or sixteen years old at the time.² However, the consistent manner of handwriting corresponds precisely with that of the younger Brueghel and this corpus of fine drawings illustrates just how much the young artist had already absorbed from his father's Antwerp studio over the previous five years, or so.

^1.Van Camp, op. cit., p. 25

^2.Ibid.