Village Scene with a Canal

Jan Brueghel, the Elder (Flemish, 1568–1625)

1609

Medium/TechniqueOil on copper

Dimensions21.9 x 34cm (8 5/8 x 13 3/8in.)
Framed: 36.8 x 48.3 x 3.8 cm (14 1/2 x 19 x 1 1/2 in.)

Credit LineGift of Rose-Marie and Eijk van Otterloo, in support of the Center for Netherlandish Art

Accession number2019.2089

On View

Not on view

ClassificationsPaintings

Collections

Europe

ProvenanceJohann Wilhelm, Elector Palatine of the Rhine and Count Palatine of Neuberg (b. 1658 – d. 1716), Düsseldorf [see note 1]; by inheritance t to his brother, Karl III Philip, Elector Palatine of the Rhine and Count Palatine of Neuberg (b. 1661 – d. 1742), Mannheim [see note 2]; by inheritance to his nephew, Karl Theodor, Elector Palatine of the Rhine and Elector of Bavaria (b. 1724 – d. 1799), Mannheim [see note 3]; to Maximilian IV Joseph, Elector of the Palatinate-Bavaria, later Maximilian I Joseph, King of Bavaria (b. 1756 – d. 1825), Mannheim and Schleissheim [see note 4]; by inheritance to his son, Ludwig I, King of Bavaria (b. 1786 - d. 1868), Schleissheim; 1836, transferred to the Alte Pinakothek, Munich (no. 2839) [see note 5]; 1933, deaccessioned by the Alte Pinakothek, Munich and exchanged with the Galerie Arnold, Dresden [see note 6]. Leopold R. Gellert (b. 1896 – d. 1969), Prague and New York [see note 7]; by descent to his son, Robert J. Gellert, New York; May 20, 1971, Gellert estate sale, Parke-Bernet, New York, lot 26, sold to Terry Engell Gallery, London. Private collection, England [see note 8]. June 1971, sold at the Antique Dealers Fair, London [see note 9]. Sir Maxwell Joseph (b. 1910 – d. 1982), London [see note 10]. 1977, sold by David Koetser, Geneva, and Colnaghi, London, to Robert Smith, Bethesda, MD [see note 11]. Richard Kirstein, Bethesda, MD. Edward Speelman, London. 1995, sold by Noortman Master Paintings, London, to Eijk and Rose-Marie van Otterloo, Marblehead, MA; 2019, gift of Eijk and Rose-Marie van Otterloo to the MFA. (Accession Date: December 11, 2019)

NOTES:
[1] By 1684, Elector Johann Wilhelm (r. 1690-1716) had already begun to assemble his collection of about 350 paintings through a network of dealers throughout Europe. An inventory of his collection, made at the time of his death and published in 1751, records this painting as a Village in a beautiful landscape, with many figures, by Breugel. See Johan von Gool, "Catalogus en uitvoerige Beschriyvinge der voortrefflyke onschatbaere Schilderkunst," in De nieuwe Schouburg der nederlantsche kunstschilders en Schilderessen, vol. 2 (The Hague, 1751).

[2] Karl Philipp inherited his brother's painting collection and transferred it from Düsseldorf to Mannheim in 1730. The painting is recorded in the inventory drawn up at Mannheim in 1730 (no. 21: "A village of different figures") and is visible in the drawings made of the cabinet walls there in 1731. For these documents, see Everhard Korthals Altes, "The collections of the Palatine Electors: new information, documents and drawings" Burlington Magazine 145, no. 1200 (March, 2003): 209 (fig. 98), 212, and Appendix, no. 21. The painting is also included in the 1756 "Inventory of the princely art collection at Mannheim" (Verzeichnis der in den Churfürstlichen Cabinetten zu Mannheim befindlichen Mahlereyen, no. 100: "A prospect of a canal in a village, with many figures").

[3] In 1777, Karl Theodor, already Elector of the Palatine, inherited the Electorate of Bavaria and the estates of the House of Wittelsbach. Thereafter, the Mannheim Galerie was legally merged with the Wittelsbach family collections.

[4] With Karl Theodor's death in 1799, the Sulzbach line of succession became extinct. The Electorates of both the Palatine and Bavaria passed to Maximilian Joseph, who, as Duke of Zweibrücken (since 1795) was the most senior prince. He became Maximilian I, King of Bavaria, in 1806, at which point the Mannheim Galerie was transferred to the Wittelsbach estate in Munich.

[5] In 1836 Ludwig I, King of Bavaria (r. 1825 - 1848) opened the Pinakothek in Munich to exhibit the royal painting collection. It was renamed the Alte Pinakothek with the opening of the Neue Pinakothek across the street in 1853.

[6] In the 1930s, the director of the Bavarian State Paintings Collection, Ernst Buchner, deaccessioned many paintings at the Alte Pinakothek to trade for German works of art. At least seventy-four Dutch paintings were deaccessioned at this time. For further information on the deaccessions, see Jonathan Petropoulos, The Faustian Bargain: The Art World in Nazi Germany (Oxford, 2000), 31-32.

[7] Leopold Gellert may have purchased the painting as early as the 1930s. The family left Prague in 1938 and safeguarded many of their belongings in England during World War II. This may have been among the articles they kept in England and retrieved after the war

[8] According to Brod Gallery, Jan Brueghel the Elder (London, 1979), cat. no. 21.

[9] According to Klaus Ertz and Christa Nitze-Ertz, Pieter Breughel der Jüngere, Jan Brueghel der Ältere: flämische Malerei um 1600: Tradition und Fortschritt (Vienna, 1997), cat. no. 55.

[10] According to Frederik Duparc, Golden: Dutch and Flemish Masterworks from the Rose-Marie and Eijk van Otterloo Collection (New Haven, 2011), cat. no. 14.

[11] Advertised in Weltkunst 47 (April 1, 1977), p. 611. See also Brod Gallery, 1979 (as above, n. 8), where it is said to have been “sold to an American private collector in 1977” and in a “Washington [area] Private Collection”.