(Dinant circa 1500 – circa 1555)
On the Way to Mount Calvary,
oil on panel, 31 x 47 cm, framed

Provenance:
Private collection, Germany;
sale, Hugo Helbing, Munich, 14 december 1934, lot 299;
with Samuel Hartveld, Antwerp, 1935;
sale, Hans W. Lange, Berlin, 6 december 1937, lot 3;
Dr. Jacob Koerfer (1902-1990), Berlin;
sale, Hans W. Lange, 27 January 1943, lot 8;
Private collection, Belgium;
sale, Artcurial, Paris, 13 November 2015, lot 57;
Private collection, Belgium

Literature:
D. Schubert, Die Gemälde des Braunschweiger Monogrammisten: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der niederländischen Malerei des 16. Jahrhunderts, Cologne 1970, p. 34;
M. J. Friedländer, Early Netherlandish Painting, vol. XIII, Leiden 1972, p. 79, no. 67b;
R. Genaille, La Montée au Calvaire de Bruegel l’Ancien, in: Jaarboek van het Koninklijk Museum vor Schone Kunst, Antwerpe 1979, p. 160,
note 33;
L. Serck, Henri Bles et la peinture du paysage dans les Pays-Bas méridionaux avant Bruegel (phil. diss.), vol. 3, Leuven 1990, p. 732;
L. Serck, ‘La Montée au Calvaire’ dans l’oeuvre de Henri Bles: création et composition, in: N. E. Muller, B. J. Rosasco, J. H. Marrow, Herri met de Bles, Studies and Explorations of the World Landscape Tradition, Princeton/Turnhout 1998, pp. 65-66, no. 12

Herri met de Bles, a student of Joachim Patinier, was one of the leading Mannerist landscapists of his time. By handling subject matters like that of the present painting he was able to display his talent for well-planned compositions populated with large numbers of figures and landscape compositions partially featuring exaggerated anthropomorphic features. Further examples of this composition can be found in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, and in the Doria Pamphilj Collection in Rome.