Pieter Brueghel the Younger

Friedrich Jacob Gsell (1811/12–1871), Vienna;

His sale, Vienna, Plach, 14 March 1872, lot 19 (as 'Joh. Brueghel [sic], Kirmes, Lebendige Composition, frische Farbe' ['Joh. Brueghel [sic], lively composition, fresh colours']);

Where acquired by Thomas Michael Ritter von Galatti (1862–1931), Vienna;

Probably Josephine von Wertheimstein (1820–1894), Vienna;

Probably by inheritance to her brother's son, Dr Phillip von Gomperz (1860–1948), Vienna;

Confiscated by the Gestapo from the above on 1 April 1942 and photographed in 1943 at the behest of Baldur von Schirach, Vienna;

Maria-Friederike Haas (1903–1997) (née Drexler, formerly Jellinek and later Sebastiani);

By whose family sold (with erroneous designation 'Property from the Family of Ing. Bruno Drexler, Vienna'), London, Sotheby's, 3 December 1997, lot 69;

Where acquired by a private collector;

Thence by descent;

By whom sold privately at Sotheby's, London, in 2023 pursuant to a settlement agreement with the heirs of Dr Phillip von Gomperz;

When acquired by the present collector.

T. von Frimmel, Geschichte der Wiener Gemäldesammlungen Lexikon der Wiener Gemäldesammlungen, Munich 1913–14, vol. II, p. 85, no. 1231a;

K. Ertz, Pieter Brueghel der Jüngere, Lingen 1988/2000, pp. 864, 865 and 907, no. E1231a, reproduced fig. 697;

K. Ertz in Pieter Brueghel le Jeune (1564–1637/8) – Jan Brueghel l'Ancien (1568–1625), Une famille des peintres flamands vers 1600, exh. cat., Antwerp 1998, p. 412, under no. 149, reproduced fig. 149a, n. 3;

S. Lillie, Was einmal war, Vienna 2003, under Gomperz, pp. 422 and 424, no. 11.

This Maypole dance is arguably the finest example of the most famous of Pieter Brueghel the Younger's independent compositions, and in the opinion of the great Brueghel scholar Georges Marlier, the one which most clearly expressed his own personality.¹ The last major member of the great Brueghel family dynasty founded by his father Pieter Bruegel the Elder (1526–1569), Pieter the Younger was together with his younger brother Jan (1568–1625) among the most popular and prolific painters in Antwerp in the first half of the seventeenth century. He became a Master in the Antwerp Painters' Guild in 1584–85, and even if he never enjoyed his brother's financial success, he was held in some esteem by his contemporaries, including Anthony van Dyck (1599–1641), who painted his portrait, and Rubens (1577–1640), who owned one of his works. Even in his lifetime, just as now, works by the elder Bruegel were no longer available, and Pieter Brueghel the Younger was required to meet the huge demand for replicas of his father's designs. The present panel shows that in addition to this, he was also able to design and paint many of his own compositions, which carried on the subject matter and humorous observations of the follies of human behaviour made so popular by his father.

The feast day of Saint George depicted here was one of the most popular festivals in the late medieval calendar, and a large banner dedicated to the saint can be seen hanging from the inn on the left of the painting. The maypole was a central feature of such folk festivals, and was similarly used to mark the arrival of summer. Although he was undoubtedly very familiar with the depictions of peasant celebrations painted in the previous century by his father, as well as Marten van Cleve (1520–1570) and Peeter Baltens (1540–1584), Pieter Brueghel the Younger has here produced an independent composition in an energetic and colourful idiom that is wholly his own. The swirling rhythms of the circles of figures dancing in the foreground and around the maypole itself and leading into the busy village street beyond are infused with an energy and character that is quite distinctive from the work of his predecessors. This painting shares his father's predilection for a high viewpoint, but the only part that is indebted to him is the distant landscape on the right with a castle on a rocky bluff overlooking a wide river, which is inspired by the same vista in the background of Pieter Bruegel the Elder's painting of The Preaching of Saint John the Baptist of 1566 today in the National Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest.² The exceptionally good state of preservation of the surface of the present painting has left all Brueghel's careful details of the figures and their expressions beautifully intact, and the full range of bright colours in near pristine state. The festival is clearly well advanced, for the village is crowded and several of the male participants are evidently somewhat the worse for wear. Beyond the dancing groups we can see a group of children following a jester and a drummer, two pilgrims being welcomed to an inn, and on the road the beginnings of a serious fight breaking out, with the alarmed womenfolk rushing to intervene.

This painting may be considered the finest surviving and thereby probably the prime version of this composition, of which only a further seven (possibly nine) fully autograph examples have survived.³ The panel supports and dimensions of this group are all very similar; the only notable difference in their designs being the inclusion of a tent or awning which covers the drinking figures on the right of the composition in several versions, but which is absent here. The present panel and that from the collection of Baron Laurent Meeus, sold London, Sotheby's, 7 July 2010, lot 9,⁴ are the only two versions which include the foreground tree with its distinctive twisting trunk that frames the left-hand side of the design. There are only two dated examples among the known versions: the earliest, dating from 1626, was last recorded with Galerie Jacques Leegenhoek in Paris,⁵ and the other, dated to the following year 1627, was sold New York, Sotheby's, 29 January 2020, lot 12.⁶ However, dendrochronological analysis of the ex-Meeus panel undertaken at the time of the 2010 sale, showed that its parent tree had also served for other panels painted by Brueghel with much earlier dates of 1618 and 1621.⁷ As the present work and the ex-Meeus painting are the most closely related of the group in terms of design and quality, it is possible that they may have been among the very earliest versions of this particular composition, painted in the early 1620s and distinguishable from a slightly later development of the design which included the device of the awning, to which the two other dated works belong. Georges Marlier, who knew of no dated examples of this composition when he wrote his monograph in 1969, had also previously argued on grounds of style for a slightly earlier dating in the first half of the 1620s.

¹ 'La Danse autour de l'Arbre de Mai est peut-être le tableau dans lequel la personalité de Pierre le Jeune s'exprime le plus clairement', in G. Marlier, Pierre Brueghel le Jeune, Brussels 1969, p. 401.

² Inv. no. 51.2829. M. Sellink, Bruegel: The Complete Paintings, Drawings and Prints, Ghent 2007, pp. 232–33, no. 153. The entire design was copied by Pieter Brueghel the Younger on several occasions.

³ Ertz 2000, pp. 905–7, nos E (= echt or genuine) 1226–31a, all reproduced. To these Ertz adds a further five versions of unseen or doubtful authenticity. The very close similarity and dimensions of the known versions has led to some confusion in the literature. Two versions may be one and the same picture: no. E1229 is seemingly a copy of, or the same as, the ex-Leegenhoek version of 1626. Similarly, Ertz's doubtful nos F1232 and F1233 both possibly refer to the version of 1627 referred to below. It is likely that another version formerly with Galerie Graupe in Paris (Ertz's F1234) may also be genuine, for Georges Marlier describes it as 'un très bon exemplaire'; Marlier 1969, p. 403, no. 6.

⁴ This painting was unknown to Klaus Ertz at the time of the publication of his catalogue in 2000.

⁵ Oil on panel, 50.7 x 75.5 cm.; Ertz 2000, p. 905, no. E1226, reproduced fig. 696.

⁶ Oil on panel, 54.6 x 75.7 cm.; probably Ertz 2000, p. 907, no. E1232 or E1233, or quite possibly both.

⁷ These are the two versions of The Village Lawyer or Rent Day today in the Castle Museum, Norwich (dated 1618) and the Groeningemuseum in Bruges (dated 1620) respectively; Ertz 2000, vol. I, pp. 503–4, nos E498 and E504,

respectively.