Jan Brueghel the Elder

(Brussels 1568-1625 Antwerp)

Hendrick van Balen (Antwerp 1575-1632) and Denis van Alsloot (Malines 1570-1628 Brussels)

Orpheus charming the animals

Footnotes

Provenance
With Fred Kline, Texas, 1980s
Sale, Ader Picard Tajan, 29 June 1989, lot 47, where purchased by the present owner
Private Collection, France

Literature
K. Ertz, Jan Brueghel der Ȁltere (1568-1625). Kritischer Katalog der Gemälde, Lingen, 2008, vol. II, p. 767, no 380, Ill. p. 766.

The present work is accompanied by a copy of a letter from Dr. Klaus Ertz in which he confirms the attribution to Jan Brueghel the Elder, Hendrick van Balen and Denis van Alsloot (dated 26 May 1987). In his note on the painting, Ertz suggests a date of 1605 for the work.

With Orpheus playing his lyre at the very centre of the composition, the present work shows the poet surrounded by all manner of animal life. According to Greek myth, the poet Orpheus played the lyre so sweetly that the animals gathered around him to listen, subdued by his music. The subject, at this date, was just beginning to become popular amongst the artists of Northern Europe, with only a few earlier examples known, such as Hans Vredman de Vries's commission for Danzig city council in the 1590s. Whilst Jan Brueghel the Elder became known for his 'Paradise' landscapes - exquisitely rendered lush woodland settings teeming with animal life - earning him the sobriquet 'Paradise Breughel', he is known to have painted only a handful of Orpheus charming the animals. In his Allegory of Hearing, now in the Prado, Madrid (inv. no. 1395, see fig. 1), part of his series of Allegories of the Senses executed in collaboration with Sir Peter Paul Rubens, the artist included a painting of the subject on the wall of the palace.

Collaborations between Jan Brueghel and other artists were not uncommon with the artist known to have worked with Rubens, as mentioned above, along with Joos de Momper the Younger, Hans Rottenhammer, and Sebastian Vrancx, amongst others. Early records of works by Brueghel show that he also worked with Hendrick van Balen, painter of the figure of Orpheus in the present work; in 1671, the Antwerp dealers Forchondt list two works described as 'Godenbancet van Henrico van Balen, de bijwerken van den frouweelen Breugel' (see K. Ertz, Jan Brueghel D. Ȁ, Die Gemälde, Cologne, 1979, p. 408 and 550). When the two artists worked together, Brueghel would be responsible for the landscape and still life elements and Van Balen for the figures (see, for example, the signed Feast of the Gods now in the Dresden Gemäldegalerie (gal. no. 921, which Ertz dates to a similar moment to the present painting (see fig.2).

The final artist to work on the Orpheus charming the animals was Denis van Alsloot, whom Ertz suggests was responsible for the larger animals. Given the variation in paint surface between these animals and the smaller ones, Ertz has put forward the idea that these were added at a later date, once the first layer of paint was dry, suggesting that perhaps the owner of the painting, once he had purchased it from Brueghel and van Balen, then asked van Alsloot to add these larger animals.