(Antwerp 1601–1678)
The Earthly Paradise
oil on copper, 50 x 65 cm, framed

We are grateful to Klaus Ertz for confirming the attribution of the present painting (written communication).

Klaus Ertz writes in his certificate: “The colours are typical of the paradisiacal landscapes of the late 1630s. The overlapping glazes have been preserved in good condition, as have the white highlights, such as those along the outlines of the leaves, which were applied in a final step.” Ertz continues: “The theme of the ‘paradisiacal landscape’ was already highly popular in the early 17th century, so it is not surprising that both the father and the son revisited the subject time and again. Therefore there exist numerous paintings by both of them that are very similar and show only little variation. A characteristic feature of these landscapes is the bare Tree of Birds ‘occupied’ by various, partly even exotic, birds – a motif imitated particularly by Jan van Kessel the Elder and which, as an independent subject, functioned as an ‘Allegory of Hearing’ – as well as the densely grown cluster of trees at the centre of the composition. These motifs had been invented by the father and were subsequently adopted by the son […].

Jan the Younger had already devoted himself to this major theme of landscape painting informed by Christianity in the early 1620s and varied it until well into the 1650s. While he relied on his father’s meticulous and detailed manner of painting at the beginning of his career as a painter, his brushwork became explicitly painterly, loose, and liberal towards the mid-1630s. This transition can already be recognised in the painting to be assessed here. We encounter a painter who has already considerably detached himself from his father, who is on his way towards independence, and who has introduced his own manner of painting to well-tested compositions. Therefore I believe that the present painting dates from the late 1630s […].” For the composition of the present painting, Jan Brueghel the Younger seems to have harked back to his father’s Entry of the Animals into Noah’s Ark (1615, heute Wellington Museum, Apsley House, London).

Ertz compares the present painting to following works by Jan Brueghel the Younger:

1. Paradisiacal Landscape with the Fall of Man (Szepmüvészeti Museum, Budapest, c. 1620);
2. Paradisiacal Landscape with the Fall of Man (Prado, Madrid, c. 1626);
3. The Entry of the Animals into Noah’s Ark (Prado, Madrid, 1630s);
4. The Entry of the Animals into Noah’s Ark (Staatliches Museum Schloss Mosigkau, Dessau, 1630s)

Ertz concludes: “In its painterly approach, the painting to be assessed is particularly close to the last two examples in Madrid and Dessau”.

We are grateful to Klaus Ertz for confirming the attribution of the present painting (written communication).

Klaus Ertz writes in his certificate: “The colours are typical of the paradisiacal landscapes of the late 1630s. The overlapping glazes have been preserved in good condition, as have the white highlights, such as those along the outlines of the leaves, which were applied in a final step.” Ertz continues: “The theme of the ‘paradisiacal landscape’ was already highly popular in the early 17th century, so it is not surprising that both the father and the son revisited the subject time and again. Therefore there exist numerous paintings by both of them that are very similar and show only little variation. A characteristic feature of these land-scapes is the bare Tree of Birds ‘occupied’ by various, partly even exotic, birds – a motif imitated particularly by Jan van Kessel the Elder and which, as an independent subject, functioned as an ‘Allegory of Hearing’ – as well as the densely grown cluster of trees at the centre of the composition. These motifs had been invented by the father and were subsequently adopted by the son […].

Jan the Younger had already devoted himself to this major theme of landscape painting informed by Christianity in the early 1620s and varied it until well into the 1650s. While he relied on his father’s meticulous and detailed manner of painting at the beginning of his career as a painter, his brushwork became explicitly painterly, loose, and liberal towards the mid-1630s. This transition can already be recognised in the painting to be assessed here. We encounter a painter who has already considerably detached himself from his father, who is on his way towards independence, and who has introduced his own manner of painting to well-tested compositions. Therefore I believe that the present painting dates from the late 1630s […].” For the composition of the present painting, Jan Brueghel the Younger seems to have harked back to his father’s Entry of the Animals into Noah’s Ark (1615, heute Wellington Museum, Apsley House, London).

Ertz compares the present painting to following works by Jan Brueghel the Younger:

1. Paradisiacal Landscape with the Fall of Man (Szepmüvészeti Museum, Budapest, c. 1620);
2. Paradisiacal Landscape with the Fall of Man (Prado, Madrid, c. 1626);
3. The Entry of the Animals into Noah’s Ark (Prado, Madrid, 1630s);
4. The Entry of the Animals into Noah’s Ark (Staatliches Museum Schloss Mosigkau, Dessau, 1630s)

Ertz concludes: “In its painterly approach, the painting to be assessed is particularly close to the last two examples in Madrid and Dessau”.