(Antwerp 1554–1626 Rome)
Fauns in a wooded landscape,
oil on canvas, 100 x 145 cm, framed

Provenance:
Gottlieb Friedrich Reber (1880–1959), Lausanne;
Sale, Lempertz, Cologne, 17 November 2007, lot 1125;
Rhenish private collection

We are grateful to Francesca Cappelletti for confirming the attribution on the basis of a high resolution digital photograph.

The present painting is the second version of a composition by Bril from 1620 now in the City Art Gallery in Bradford (see F. Cappelletti, Paul Bril e la Pittura di Paesaggio a Roma, Rome, 2006, p. 300, no. 160). The compositional scheme is characteristic of Bril’s late works from the period between 1620 and 1624 (compare Landscape with the Hunt of Diana, Louvre, Paris, or Landscape with Nymphs and Satyrs, dating from 1623 and now in the Allen Memorial Art Museum in Oberlin, Ohio).

The figures in the present painting have been attributed to Pietro Paolo Bonzi (c. 1575–1636), who painted the staffage for several paintings by Bril, such as in the work in Oberlin mentioned above and in Landscape with Nymphs and Satyrs in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. In the oeuvre of Paul Bril, who left Antwerp for Rome in 1574-75, we can observe the transition from 16th to 17th century landscape painting. Bril´s works are therefore considered a link between the landscapes of such painters as Coninxloo and those by Domenichino, Claude Lorrain, and Nicolas Poussin.