Vast River Landscape with Travellers and Peasants Dancing on a Path and an Abbey in the Distance,
oil on panel, stamped on the reverse with the panel maker’s mark and with the coat-of-arms of the City of Antwerp, 44.7 x 66.9 cm, framed

We are grateful to Dr. Klaus Ertz, who, after examining the present painting in the original, has confirmed it to be an autograph work by Jan Brueghel II, with the participation of Lucas van Uden. A written certificate is available.

As an important addition to the known joint products of Antwerp artists dating from the first half of the 17th century, this painting is one of the rare examples in which the landscapist Lucas van Uden collaborated with Jan Brueghel II. From a slightly raised vantage point, which, however, as Dr. Ertz points out in his certificate, is already far removed from the ‘world landscape perspective’ of earlier Flemish landscape painting, the spectator looks across a vast river landscape. In the left foreground, travellers have settled to take a rest while observing a dancing peasant couple. Brueghel, an astute observer of human behaviour, has rendered this genre element with great technical perfection. Further travellers watch the goings-on in amazement. Within this scenario, Brueghel has developed interactions between the figures that are so typical of his art. This highly narrative scene appears on a landscape stage conceived by Lucas van Uden. The latter’s significance as a landscapist is increasingly recognized today. Dr. Ertz: “Uden is one of the most superior Flemish landscape painters of the 17th century. In his work, he continues Rubens’s example on the purest and highest level…” The view into the distant background conveys a great measure of tranquillity and harmony and is characteristic of Uden’s compositions. The realistically viewed landscape enters into a stylistic union with Jan Brueghel’s figures, so that the result is a highly balanced overall impression, which makes the present composition an important example of 17th-century Flemish landscape painting.
According to Dr. Ertz, the palace architecture discernible in the left background may depict Tervuren Palace, the governor’s residence.