Lot 30: Pieter Brueghel II (Brussels 1564/5-1637/8 Antwerp)

The Misanthrope oil on panel, circular 71/2 in. (19 cm.) diam. PROVENANCE with Galerie de Boer, Amsterdam, before 1934, from whom acquired by the family of the present owner. LITERATURE G. Marlier, Pierre Brueghel le Jeune, Brussels, 1969, p. 146, no. 1d. K. Ertz, Pieter Brueghel der Jngere, Lingen, 2000, II, pp. 81-2 and 191, no. E27. EXHIBITION Amsterdam, Galerie de Boer, 1934, Helsche en fluweelen Brueghel, no. 9, fig. 5, lent from a German private collection (i.e. that of the family of the present owner). NOTES The composition is one of the group of roundels depicting proverbs and moralising subjects painted by Pieter Brueghel II, mostly after designs by his father, Pieter Bruegel I. The present type, which is also known as The Faithlessness of the World, derives from the latter's oil in the Museo e Gallerie Nazionale di Capodimonte, Naples. An engraving is known of that painting by Jan [Hans] Wierix (Antwerp 1549-c. 1618 Brussels); Wierix has altered Bruegel's background, introducing, to the left, the windmill visible in the present work and, to the right, a wagon being attacked by robbers. It was traditionally thought that the engraving derived from a drawing with the same differences (formerly Amiens, Jean Masson collection) given to Pieter I; however Ertz, loc. cit., rejected the traditional attribution of the drawing, suggesting instead that it is a work of Pieter II, taken from the engraving. The ostensible subject is explained in two inscriptions, on the prototype and the engraving. On the prototype is written 'Om dat der Welt is soe ongetru Daer om gha ic in den ru [Because the world is so faithless, I shall go into mourning from it]'; whilst around the engraving is inscribed 'De sulck draecht rou; Om dat de weerelt is onghetrou, Die meeste ghebruycken minst recht en reden, Weynich leefter nou; Also hy leven sou, Men rooft men treckt elck streeckt vol gheveusde seden [He is in mourning because the world is so faithless, Most people do not in the least keep to right and reason, Today few live, like they ought to live they rob, they steal and everyone is full of wicked ways].' But one may wonder why the monk, or hermit, is in possession of a full money bag at all; clearly anyone in such a calling should have renounced his worldly goods. The inferral is that the misanthrope himself is no better than the people he so loftily denounces and is in fact worse, being additionally laden with hypocrisy. Therein lies the explanation for the thief's happy countenance - schadenfreude as he steals from one who, proudly revelling in his own unwitting hypocrisy, happily ignores the plight of another man being attacked beyond. The addition of a robbery in the background was, as mentioned above, an introduction of Wierix's, designed to underscore Bruegel's moral. The earliest of Pieter II's versions of the subject (Antwerp, Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten; location unknown, formerly Prince Albrecht von Preussen, see K. Ertz, op. cit., p. 191, no. E26, fig. 20; and that formerly with the Brod Gallery, for which see ibid., no. E28, fig. 21) all employ in the background that from Pieter I's Nest Robber (Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum). Only in the three later versions (the present work and two of unknown location, for which see ibid., nos. 30-1) does the design include a background that is closer to the engraving. The character of Pieter Brueghel II's artistic output has recently been examined in depth in the Breughel Enterprises exhibition (Maastricht and Brussels, 2001-2). It is known that he employed a studio of at least nine pupils as well as his own son, Pieter III. The exhibition has shown, however, that the degree of studio involvement, and the manner in which it is employed, remains a barely researched field. This is reflected in Ertz's catalogue raisonn‚, in which he accepts the present work as autograph ('eigenhandig'), but notes, not having seen it in the original, the likelihood of studio participation in this and at least two others of this type. Given Brueghel's output, and the nature of his studio assistance, such a degree of caution is responsible, but cannot necessarily be taken as significant in that the painting itself has not been physically examined. It is interesting that the original inscription of Bruegel's prototype is written in faded paint on the reverse of the present picture. This might indicate that, if as has been suggested (for example, D. Allart, 'Did Pieter Brueghel the Younger See his Father's Paintings?', in the cataogue of the exhibition, op. cit., 2001-2, pp. 55-6) Pieter II worked from drawings left behind by his father, then such a work existed for the present composition, recording the father's original inscription, and it was from this that the engraving, Pieter II's drawings and his paintings derive. Such a view is strengthened by the fact that the painted prototype was in the collection of Count Mosi in Parma by the beginning of the seventeenth century, and could well have been in Italy for some time before then. It is known that many of these roundels were originally designed as plates, with the motto painted on the rim, which acted as an integral frame. Whether or not such was the case with Bruegel's original of the present composition is unknown, but the existence of the verses around the engraving suggest that it may have been so. In addition, in the background of the engraving is included a French translation of Bruegel's own surviving inscription. It seems possible, therefore, if a drawn prototype existed, that it too bore that inscription, from which that on the engraving (subsequently translated) and on the present work were taken.