Sotheby's Images

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CATALOGUE NOTE

The Master of the Holy Blood (or Maître de Saint-Sang) was the name given to the anonymous master who painted a triptych of the Lamentation in the possession of the Confraternity of the Holy Blood in Bruges. Friedländer has suggested that the artist received his training in Antwerp as he shows a close knowledge of the work of Quentin Metsys. The master appears to have produced most of his work, however, in Bruges where his output shows the influence of his fellow townsmen Gerard David, Ambrosius Benson and Jan Provost.¹

Friedländer lists several autograph versions of the Lucretia, including a version formerly in the collection of Professor Matsch in Vienna with which the present painting is possibly identifiable.² The composition of the present work also relates closely to two further autograph versions; the first is in Brussels, Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts, inv. no. 6900 and the other was sold New York, Sotheby's, 25 May 2000, lot 14.³

1. For further discussions on the artist, see M. J. Friedländer, Early Netherlandish Painting, ed. 1974, vol. IXb, pp. 98-98, and Primitifs flamands anonymes, exh. cat., Bruges 1969, pp. 74-87 & 233-33.
2. See M.J. Friedländer, 1974, op. cit., p. 120, cat. no. 217a, reproduced pl. 207, as "Present location unknown".
3. For the Brussels version see Primitifs flamands anonymes, op. cit., p. 86, cat. no. 38, reproduced.

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This photo removed by Photobucket...probably because the detail closeup involved a SAINTS BOOB. *head desk* 

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CATALOGUE NOTE

This appears to be one of only two extant versions of this composition. The other inferior version was with Galerie Fischer, Lucerne, in 1985 and sold London, Christie's South Kensington, 13 December 2002, lot 6.¹ Dr. Klaus Ertz tentatively attributes the Lucerne version to Marten van Cleve, noting compositional similarities with other works given to him, all of which, including the present one, probably derive in part from Pieter Brueghel the Younger's Tavern interior, a copy of which by Van Cleve is in Dresden, Gemäldegalerie.²

1. K. Ertz, Pieter Brueghel der Jüngere, vol. I, Lingen 2000, p. 529, fig. 398.
2. Ibid, p.524, reproduced fig. 391.

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CATALOGUE NOTE

This is Pieter Brueghel the Younger's finest and most original composition, entirely independent from any of his father's works and more assured and accomplished than any of his own other original compositions. Georges Marlier, the pioneering Breughel scholar, praised this picture for brilliantly affirming the younger Brueghel's own personality, 'The picture is one hundred percent "Breughelian", not only for the dramatic rhythms that pervade it, but also in the stylisation of the figures and in the colour harmonies. Whilst maintaining the continuity of Pieter the Elder's art through these themes, his son Pieter gives rein to his own particular vigour, his own taste for anecdote and his own mastery of his profession that equals those of the greatest artists. ¹
The painting is also one of Pieter Brueghel the Younger's rarest compositions since, including the present work, only three securely autograph versions are known. The prime version, larger in scale, and signed and dated 1628, was sold in these Rooms on 8th December 2004, lot 11, for £3,300,000. A third picture, of very similar dimensions to the present example, and signed but undated, is in the Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp. A fourth version, which may also be autograph, is recorded in the Oberlander collection before 1993, but is known only from a photograph. Although all four pictures are quite similar, Klaus Ertz² divides the compositional type into two groups: Type A, the version sold in these Rooms in December 2004, and Type B, which includes the present picture, the one in the Antwerp Museum and the ex-Oberlander painting. The most noticeable differences are in the lower right corner: in Type B the bagpipe player no longer occupies the corner of the composition but has been moved to the doorway of the inn; and the seated glutton rests on the log, and not on the basket full of produce. There are also numerous smaller differences.
Much of Pieter Brueghel the Younger's output was derived from his father's compositions, and some of his paintings are based on other early sources. Others still depend on sources within his own work. The present picture has no such derivations or resonances, with the sole exception of the façade of the inn to the left, which, as Jacqueline Folie pointed out in the 1980 Brussels exhibition catalogue, is loosely derived, with many changes, from an engraving of the Kermesse of Saint George attributed to Hieronymus Cock after Pieter Bruegel the Elder. Given that it is seen in reverse in the print, it is perhaps more likely that Pieter Brueghel the Younger had access to a drawing by his father done of the inn, or that both father and son knew the same inn, and incorporated it from memory.

1. "Cette composition, dont nos n'avons repéré que trois exemplaires, est assurément une des plus belles et des plus complètes de Pierre le Jeune, celle où sa personnalité s'affirme de la manière la plus brillante. Le tableau est à cent pour cent "breughélien", à la fois par le rhythme dynamique qui le parcourt de part en part, la stylisation des figures et les accords de couleurs. Mais tout en observant ces données qui se situent dans le prolongement de l'art du Vieux Bruegel, son fils Pierre donne libre cours à la verve qui est lui propre, à son goût de l'anecdote et à sa maîtrise d'un métier qui égale celui des plus grands". G. Marlier (ed. J. Folie), Pierre Brueghel le Jeune, Brussels 1969, p. 381.
2. See under Literature.

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