(Brussels 1568–1625 Antwerp)
Rest by a Windmill,
oil on panel, 36.2 x 48.9 cm, framed

Provenance:
Sale Ader, Picard, Tajan, Paris, 14 April 1989, lot 242 (as Jan Brueghel II);
Galerie d’Art Saint Honoré, Paris (1990);
Sale Sotheby’s, New York, 17 January 1992, lot 32;
Sale Christie’s, New York, 26 January 2011, lot 23

Literature:
K. Ertz, C. Nitze-Ertz, Jan Brueghel der Ältere, Die Gemälde, vol. I, Lingen, 2008, p. 326, no. 156

In his monograph on Jan Brueghel I, Klaus Ertz writes about the present painting: ‘Jan Brueghel the Elder seems to have painted this previously unknown version of the subject around the same year as the two variants Broad Landscape with Windmills in Munich (cat. 155) and Dresden (cat. 163), both of which date from 1611. Similar to the Munich version, the painter explicitly concentrated on the atmospheric mood expressed by effects of light and dark in the sky, which are also reflected on the earth. Jan had used the motif in the right foreground of the peasant in a red doublet bridling a horse two years earlier in the composition Resting at the Mill (cat. 154).

’In his certificate of 1990, Ertz commented upon the present painting: ‘The painting can be said to be excellently preserved. The paint layers, applied in overlapping, transparent glazes – a method typical of Jan Brueghel the Elder – thus lending the scene its peculiar three-dimensionality, have survived in perfect condition. The unmistakable jewel-like colours glow in a way I only know from the master’s originals. I could not detect any retouches or overpainting […].’ Ertz continues: ‘The stylistic features typical of this artist can also be found in the present painting: The overall impression achieved by the handling of the colours – one of the most important criteria in the identification of works by the hand of Jan the Elder – entirely complies with the characteristic pattern of Brueghel’s “wide landscapes” from his later period. Foreground, middle ground, and background seamlessly blend in with each other. The division into the three colour zones of brown, green, and blue and the staggered planes of earlier compositions have given way here to a holistic perception of space and colour. However, the brushwork is still extremely delicate. Tracing each and every form with painstaking meticulousness and technical brilliance, Jan Brueghel the Elder has created here an almost unsurpassable small masterpiece of supreme quality in terms of both technique and artistic invention. Although Jan I treated the motif of the “broad landscape with windmills” in several variants, each of them is a fantastic and technically accomplished little masterpiece in its own right that exemplifies Flemish painting during the early 17th century.’

In order to corroborate his attribution and the present painting’s date of origin in the first decade of the 17th century, Ertz compares it to the following secure works by Jan Brueghel the Elder:

(1) Country Road with Windmills (Palazzo Spada, Rome, inv. no. 138, signed and dated 1607);
(2) Wide Plain with Windmills (Staatliches Museum, Schwerin, inv. no. 138. G 23, c. 1607);
(3) Broad Landscape with Windmills (Alte Pinakothek, Munich, inv. no. 1892, signed and dated 1611);
(4) Broad Landscape with Windmills (Gemäldegalerie, Dresden, inv. no. 886, war loss, signed and dated 1611)

Klaus Ertz concludes: ‘All of the paintings mentioned belong to the same type of “broad landscape” as the one to be assessed here. The beholder’s eye glides across the picture without being “arrested”. Horizontals dominate over verticals, and there is only the separation between “sky and earth”. These paintings present themselves to us as flat landscapes in their purest form, which later culminated in the monochrome flat landscapes of Jan van Goyen or Salomon van Ruysdael in the Netherlands. Hence Jan Brueghel the Elder is the inventor proper of the flat landscape, regardless of the small size of his pictures, which were nevertheless seminal for the development of landscape painting. This underscores the artist’s significance for art history, as well as that of the painting in question.’