.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
The present painting hung in Schloss Nymphenburg in the eighteenth century and descended through the Bavarian princely collections to the Bayerisches Staatsgemälde-sammlungen where it hung in the Alte Pinakothek, Munich with a pendant (still in the Alte Pinakothek), also depicting the aftermath of Diana's hunt by the same trio of collaborators (Inv. no. 850, see Ertz, op. cit., no. 373, fig. 478). These pendants are related to a group of cabinet sized paintings of Diana and her Nymphs following the hunt on which Jan Brueghel I collaborated with Peter Paul Rubens, now preserved in the Musée de la Chasse, Paris, the Alte Pinakothek, Munich and with Silvano Lodi, Campione (see respectively, ibid., cats. 354-7, figs. 464, and 471-3).
The present lot and its pendant employ complementary designs with richly detailed figures, animals, fish and dead game in the immediate foreground of a forest landscape with a pool of water in the leafy middle distance. Ertz (ibid., p. 403, no. 375, fig. 480) connects these two paintings with a third, also attributed by him to Brueghel I, van Balen and Snyders and in the Alte Pinakothek (Inv. no. 1950) depicting the nymphs showing Diana their bountiful catch amidst the plenty of the hunt. He cites a fourth related painting known only to him from photographs (formerly?) in the Spencer Collection, Althorp House (ibid., no. 376, fig. 481), as well as a painting in the Kress Collection, New York (ibid., no. 377, fig. 482; see also Eisler, op. cit., p. 100, no. 143, fig. 94). Eisler speculated that the Kress painting could have been en suite with the present work. While Eisler dated the group shortly after 1625, Ertz suggested a dating of circa 1621, the date on another collaboration between van Balen and Jan Brueghel I, Allegory of Air (Musée du Louvre, Paris, Inv. no. 1920; Ertz, op. cit., no. 372, fig. 447). Collaborations between these two artists on similar paintings are recorded in documents; the inventory of the estate of Jan Brueghel I compiled by his son, included 'Een landschap stuc van mon Père, van Bael de nimfkens heel curieus gedaen' (Ertz., ibid., p. 542, doc. no. 6). Ertz originally believed that Frans Snyders had a hand in the execution of the still life details of the animals depicted in the present painting and the entire series devoted to Diana and her Nymphs, but Robels questioned this idea in her monograph on Snyders (loc. cit.), suggesting the details, like the landscape, were executed by Jan Brueghel himself and noted that Ertz too later changed his mind. A print by Wenzel Hollar exists for the hunting horn (see G. Porthey, Wenzel Hollar, boschrieibender Berzeichnis seiner Kupferstiche, 1853, no. 2054).
The present lot and its pendant employ complementary designs with richly detailed figures, animals, fish and dead game in the immediate foreground of a forest landscape with a pool of water in the leafy middle distance. Ertz (ibid., p. 403, no. 375, fig. 480) connects these two paintings with a third, also attributed by him to Brueghel I, van Balen and Snyders and in the Alte Pinakothek (Inv. no. 1950) depicting the nymphs showing Diana their bountiful catch amidst the plenty of the hunt. He cites a fourth related painting known only to him from photographs (formerly?) in the Spencer Collection, Althorp House (ibid., no. 376, fig. 481), as well as a painting in the Kress Collection, New York (ibid., no. 377, fig. 482; see also Eisler, op. cit., p. 100, no. 143, fig. 94). Eisler speculated that the Kress painting could have been en suite with the present work. While Eisler dated the group shortly after 1625, Ertz suggested a dating of circa 1621, the date on another collaboration between van Balen and Jan Brueghel I, Allegory of Air (Musée du Louvre, Paris, Inv. no. 1920; Ertz, op. cit., no. 372, fig. 447). Collaborations between these two artists on similar paintings are recorded in documents; the inventory of the estate of Jan Brueghel I compiled by his son, included 'Een landschap stuc van mon Père, van Bael de nimfkens heel curieus gedaen' (Ertz., ibid., p. 542, doc. no. 6). Ertz originally believed that Frans Snyders had a hand in the execution of the still life details of the animals depicted in the present painting and the entire series devoted to Diana and her Nymphs, but Robels questioned this idea in her monograph on Snyders (loc. cit.), suggesting the details, like the landscape, were executed by Jan Brueghel himself and noted that Ertz too later changed his mind. A print by Wenzel Hollar exists for the hunting horn (see G. Porthey, Wenzel Hollar, boschrieibender Berzeichnis seiner Kupferstiche, 1853, no. 2054).