(Brussels 1564–1637/38 Antwerp)
Portrait of a young man, bust length,
oil on panel, diameter 12.5 cm, framed

Provenance:
Private collection, Paris;
Gallery P. de Boer, Amsterdam (1956);
European private collection

The present painting is accompanied by a certificate by Dr. Klaus Ertz (2010). Dr. Ertz writes: ‘This portrait of a youth is rendered against a chatoyant backdrop of browns and yellows. Although the head of the young man is turned slightly to the left, he directly faces the beholder. His short, dark-blonde hair is combed back so that his high forehead is exposed. He wears a light-coloured doublet buttoned at the front and a white collar. The young man gazes out at the beholder with a serious and reserved expression… All of the stylistic features typical of this artist can also be found in the present painting, including the painterly perfection and detailed brushwork – especially in the delicately rendered eyebrows and hair and the finely executed nose, mouth, and right ear. The mask-like face that can normally be observed in the art of Pieter Brueghel the Younger has given way here to a more individually moulded portrait that makes an extremely lively impression. In their description of human characters, neither the famous father, Pieter Brueghel the Elder, nor the son, Pieter Brueghel the Younger, concentrated on the mimicking reproduction of a particular person, but on the adumbration of human traits in general. They were much more interested in the characterisation of human types and in the elaboration of certain behaviours and their impact on physiognomy than in simply rendering the features of an individual sitter. The small panel in question therefore hardly seems to depict a particular man the artist may have known personally, but rather a general study of the head of a young man…’ Ertz compares the present painting to four further head studies by the hand of Pieter Brueghel II: 1. Head of a Lansquenet, Musée Fabre, Montpellier (K. Ertz, Pieter Brueghel der Jüngere, vol. II, Freren, 2000, p. 941, no. 1379, after 1616); 2. Portrait of a Peasant, private collection (ibid., p. 938, no. 1380, after 1616); 3. Portrait of a Peasant, private collection (ibid., p. 939, no. 1381, after 1616); 4. Bust of a Peasant in a Dark Cap (art market, Amsterdam, 2008, after 1616). Accordingly, Ertz dates the present painting to after 1616. He concludes: ‘The portrait of this young man stands out in the artist’s oeuvre, for hitherto we have only known heads by his hand of elderly peasants. The picture is highly significant because it displays a further facet of this versatile artist…’