Jan Brueghel the Younger

Essay:

Jan Brueghel the Younger began his career as a pupil of his famous father Jan Brueghel the Elder. From 1622 he travelled extensively in Italy, where he was to meet Sir Anthony van Dyck and Lucas de Wael. Here he also made the acquaintance of Archbishop Borromeo who had been his father's important patron.

He returned to Antwerp after the death of his father in 1625. This same year he was to take over his father's workshop and he was also elected a member of the Guild around that time and became the dean in 1630. He married in 1626 and was to have eleven children, five of whom became well known artists (the best known being Abraham and Jan-Baptiste). Apart from occasionally travelling to Paris in the 1650s he remained in Antwerp for the rest of his life.

Jan Brueghel the Younger was to collaborate on other works by his contemporaries including Peter Paul Rubens, Gonzales Coques, Jan van Kessel I (a student of his) and Hendrick van Balen as well as his father. His work is often mistaken for that of his father. Brueghel the Younger is known to have been a very slow and meticulous painter, nevertheless his execution is somewhat looser by comparison and his compositions not as tightly drawn.

-

This work appears to be another version of a slightly larger picture attributed to Jan Brueghel the Elder which was with Leonard Koetser Gallery in 1971. Another similar composition was painted by the English botanist and artist Alexander Marshal (active 1651 - 1682), dated 1663, who was presumably inspired by the Brueghels and their famous Antwerp workshop (Yale Centre for British Art, acc. no. B1981.25.436).

Together with the forget-me-not the sprig of rosemary painted so prominently hanging over the side of the Delft vase symbolises loyalty and constancy. There are also anemones, a daffodil, and fritillaries. The thick stemmed half-opened yellow flowers appear to be budding tulips.

The compositional arrangement of a large bouquet to the left of the picture and a smaller one with tall, spindly flowers to the far right was employed by both Jan Brueghel the Elder and Younger in some of their most sumptuous flower still lifes. See for instance 'Still Life of a Tazza with a Garland of Flowers, a Jewellery Box, and a Floral Bouquet in a Glass Vase' (Sotheby's, New York, 21 May 2025, lot 6) painted by father and son working together.

Provenance:

Galerie Georges Giroux, Boulevard du Régent, 43, Brussels, no. 1320 according to a label on the reverse;
Private collection, France.