A Village with Travellers halting at an Inn - Rafael Valls

Medium

Oil on Panel

Status

In Gallery Collection

Collect24 Art ID

C24-150500

This peaceful village scene is a previously unknown copy of a painting by Jan Brueghel the Elder sold a Sotheby's, London, 7 July 2010, lot 13 (£1,600,000). The Sotheby's version is the same size as the present picture, dated 1607, painted on copper, and was once in the collection of Elector Max Emanuel of Bavaria (1662-1726) (K. Ertz, Jan Brueghel der Ältere (1568-1625): Kritischer Katalog der Gemälde, Lingen, 2008-10, vol. 2, p. 496, no. 223, reproduced). Ertz sees the Sotheby's version as the development of a picture dated c.1605 sharing a Bibilcal scene with Joseph and Mary prominent in the foreground being turned away by the inn-keeper (see Ertz, vol. 2, p. 494, no. 222). In both the present picture and the Sotheby's version Joseph and Mary have been pushed further back into the composition, thus diminishing the religious theme of the painting. Ertz also points out a fourth version of the Sotheby's picture in a private collection in Germany (see Ertz, vol 2, p. 498, no. 224). While the Sotheby's and German versions are nearly identical the present painting deviates from them in several small details : the absence of ground fowl and pigeons; two additional barrels next to the maid in the centre foreground; several abandoned planks of wood in the right foreground. All of these compositions originate from Brueghel's secular Flemish village scenes painted around 1603-5. These typically depict a village from an elevated viewpoint with carts, villagers and livestock, and a track leading the eye into the distance where a windmill or church steeple can often be spied through the trees.