Village view with farmers

PIETER BRUEGHEL

Brussels 1564-1638 Antwerp

Oil on panel 24,6 x 33,5 cm.
Signed lower right ‘BREVGHEL’

Provenance
Collection Goldschmidt, Frankfurt, 1920 (according to Ertz)
Acquired for private collection, Berlin, before 1932
By descent private collection, Zürich, until 1986
Private collection, Amsterdam
Private collection, Zürich

Literature
Klaus Ertz, Pieter Brueghel der Jüngere (1564–1637/38). Die Gemälde mit kritischem Oeuvrekatalog, Lingen 1988/2000, two volumes, part 2, p. 820-821, plate 665, cat.no. E 1108

Ertz only knew this painting from an old photo with only the name of the former owner, Goldschmidt 1920, written on the back. It is unclear who this was. The painting is a variant to a 1634 dated work which was in the Klarwill collection in Vienna and which was sold in Berlin in 1928. The composition in the Klarwill painting is overall the same, only with a church in the background. In the painting here under discussion Brueghel added a hugging couple in front of the house in the background. The farmers standing in the foreground are the same in both paintings, they can be connected to a drawing in the museum in Besançon by an unknown master. 

This painting, only known from a 1920 photograph, was in the same family for about 100 years.  

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