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Spring: a landscape with elegant company on a tree-lined road

(1564 The Netherlands)

Colnaghi

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Sale, Brussels, Weber, 7-8 July 1926, lot 30; Gaston Neumans, Brussels, 1926; Private Collection, Basel, Switzerland; Schloss Fuschl Collection, Hof near Salzburg, Austria.

K. Ertz, Josse de Momper der Jüngere (1564-1635), Freren, 1986, cat. no. 331, fig. 215.

Jan Brueghel the Elder and Joos de Momper collaborated on more than eighty paintings over a period of almost thirty years. The two families were closely linked: sixty per cent of Jan the Elder’s collaborations were with de Momper and Jan the Younger took on his father’s role in the partnership upon the latter’s death in 1625. Collaborative painting on this scale is unique to seventeenth-century Flemish art. Brueghel and de Momper each had a distinctive style and type of painting with which they were associated and, through combining their talents, they were able to produce an entirely new kind of painting for the market. This was in many ways the raison d’être of collaboration and, as a practice, it was central to the production of both artists. De Momper’s large, broadly painted landscapes provided atmospheric settings for Brueghel’s figures, while they, in turn, animated de Momper’s vast landscape views. Paintings such as Spring: landscape with elegant company were considered to be among the best of local art, both ‘comfortably typical and gloriously unique.’

This scene takes place in a sweeping Flemish landscape, on a road that runs between a village at the left and a country house to the right. A horse-drawn carriage reaches the end of the road on its way out of town as several horsemen and their dogs move to one side to let it pass. The placement of the figures along the road reflects the thematic division of the composition itself: two village women stand on the left holding baskets and jugs, while an elegant young man embraces his beloved by the edge of the water at the right. To the left of the road people tend the cattle and work the land while, to the right, they enjoy the pleasures of boating, polite company and formal gardens. De Momper organised the view around the road itself, placing it in the centre of the picture plane and lining it with tall trees in a dramatic compositional move that divides the space into three almost equal parts. The foreground extends the entire width of the canvas and de Momper draws the viewer into the scene not only by the articulation of receding space through the diminishing size of the trees, but also with light. He visually associates the area of the foreground with that above the horizon line - two pleasing rounded shapes, one dark one light - leaving a band of activity strongly lit in the middleground between the two.

The present landscape has been dated by Ertz to c. 1618-19, the skilful integration of the figures and the landscape typical of the two artists’ best collaborative works. Indeed, their painting styles complemented one another. The fineness and specificity of Brueghel’s technique serves to focus the eye in the context of a vast, atmospheric landscape, while de Momper’s broad painting style, characterised by sweeping bands of blues and greens and unblended touches of the end of the brush, lends itself to panoramic views. Unlike Brueghel, who also produced history and flower paintings, de Momper specialised exclusively in decorative landscape views that could be seen from some distance - his works most often appear high on the wall in depictions of seventeenth-century picture galleries. His landscape views had the power to determine the very character of a room, in contrast to those of Jan the Elder which, through their diminutive size and jewel-like colours, required inspection at close range.

Although nothing is known about the painting’s early provenance, it is possible that it was originally one of a series of scenes, perhaps in a cycle of the seasons. Its size suggests a commission and a patron with a space large enough to accommodate it. If it were part of a series, it would have been the central scene, as the image revolves around strong verticals in the centre of the composition, in marked contrast to comparable landscapes by de Momper such as a depiction of Summer recently on the art market, London. The composition of the latter is divided by a road that runs diagonally from the lower left into the centre of the scene and is populated by figures that move out of the landscape towards an unseen destination to the left of the depicted view. The area encompassing the road has been painted in lighter tones and is framed on the right by a band of shadow, the whole emphatically oriented towards the left. While the present landscape holds its own as a single image, some of de Momper’s paintings seem almost out of balance and fragmentary until paired with other of his works. De Momper did create cycles of paintings, some, it seems, for particular locations - one inventory of 1699 describes a cycle of seven paintings, all of the same size and proportioned to fit a particular room.

With two artists working on the same canvas, issues relating to the painting’s production inevitably arise. Who was ‘in charge’ of the collaboration? Did de Momper employ Brueghel to paint figures in his landscapes or did Brueghel commission landscape scenes from de Momper to provide settings for his figure groups? The relationships between artists within a collaboration seem to have been somewhat fluid. In her study of the Antwerp art market, for example, Elizabeth Honig notes that Jan the Younger and Hendrick van Balen in effect took turns handling the works. On one occasion Brueghel would pay van Balen a nominal fee for his figures and, on another, the situation would be reversed. In the case of Jan Brueghel the Younger and de Momper, Jan the Younger on at least one occasion bought up a group of de Momper landscapes, added figures to them, and sold them at a profit. It is not known, however, whether this was his or his father’s general approach to collaborations with de Momper or whether it was an isolated event. De Momper collaborated with up to fourteen different artists during the course of his career, including Hendrick van Balen, Tobias Verhaecht, Ambrosius Francken, Sebastiaen Vrancx and Jacob Jordaens. In addition to de Momper, Brueghel also collaborated with Hendrick van Balen and Rubens.

Joos de Momper was born in Antwerp in 1564 into a family of landscape painters. He became a member of the city’s St. Luke’s Guild in 1581 and served as Dean in 1611. It has been suggested that he travelled to Italy between 1581 and 1591, although no drawings or records of such a trip survive. In 1590 he married Elisabeth Gobyn and in 1594 worked with Cornelis Floris on the decorations for the entry of Archduke Albert into Antwerp. In addition to mountain views, he painted winter landscapes and designed tapestries for the Archdukes Albert and Isabella. De Momper died in Antwerp in 1635.

Jan Brueghel was born in Brussels in 1568, the second son of Pieter Brueghel the Elder (1520/25-1569) and Maeycken Coecke van Aelst. His father died shortly after his birth, and biographer and art theorist, Karel van Mander, relates that he studied with Peeter Goetkindt. Brueghel travelled to Italy between 1589 and 1596 and in Milan met Cardinal Federico Borromeo, one of his most important patrons. Upon his return to Antwerp, he joined the St. Luke’s Guild and became Dean in 1601. He travelled to Prague and Nuremburg between 1604 and 1606, and was appointed court painter to the Archdukes Albert and Isabella in Brussels in 1606. Around 1613, he visited Holland on a diplomatic mission. He painted an extensive range of subjects, from landscapes and still lifes to history paintings. His works were highly prized and brought him wealth. He taught his son, Jan Brueghel the Younger, and Daniel Seghers, and his grandsons included Jan van Kessel and David Teniers III.

Meredith M. Hale