Gemälde Alter Meister Lot 3001 – 3074 Freitag, 22. September 2023, 14.00 Uhr

Gemälde Alter Meister | 40 3020* PIETER BRUEGHELthe Younger (Brussels 1564–1638 Antwerp) The Adoration of the Magi. Oil on panel Signed lower centre: P. BRVEGHEL. 111.5 × 159.4 cm. Provenance: - European private collection since circa 1980. - Sale Sotheby‘s, New York, 4.6.2009, Lot 39. - European private collection. This imposing Adoration of the Magi was identified by Dr Klaus Ertz in 2009 as an original work by Pieter Brueghel the Youn- ger. This composition was much in demand and became widely known through several versions. Another version by the artist‘s own hand, which until 1965 continued to be attributed to Pieter Brueghel the Elder (1527/30–1569) and was then identified as the work of his son Pieter Brueghel the Younger, is in the Phila- delphia Museum of Art (inv. no. 83-73). Thanks to the signature BRVEGHEL, our painting can be dated to before 1616 and thus earlier than the work in Philadelphia. It was not until 1616 that the artist signed with BREVGHEL, deliberately inverting the E and the V. This later signature appeared after cleaning had taken place on the work in Philadelphia and can be understood as a respectful distancing from his father‘s oeuvre. From 1616 onwards, the artist sought to expand his father‘s oeuvre with his own paintings, which, however, closely followed the style of Pieter Brueghel the Elder. Amystery remains as to the son‘s access to his father‘s original works, as there was no surviving documentation of the works in the Brueghel home after Pieter Bruegel the Elder‘s death. The remarkable stylistic closeness and fine execution now give rise to the assumption that Pieter Brueghel the Younger had been tra- velling between 1585, when he became an independent master, and 1593, the year of his earliest known work. During his travels, he may have made copies of his father‘s original works in various collections, as he did for the Adoration of the Magi, which he later elaborated in the workshop. The first sketch of this composition in tempera on linen, which is in the Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts in Brussels (inv. no. 3929), was made by his father Pieter Brueghel the Elder and used as a model by his son Pieter the Younger. The composition of the picture, with its high horizon and seemingly randommasses streaming across the picture surface with caricature-like facial features and all kinds of animal companions, stems from a 16th-century tradition. By reviving this composition, Pieter Brueghel the Younger was responding to the immense demand and popularity of this scene with the focus of the action prominently staged in the foreg- round. Thanks to the quality of his workmanship, Pieter Brueghel the Younger quickly stood out from the numerous artists of that circle and the successors of the Brueghelian style and achieved great recognition alongside his brother the ‘Flower Brueghel’ Jan Brueghel the Elder (1568–1625). CHF 2 000 000 / 3 000 000 (€ 2 083 330 / 3 125 000)