Vrancx, Sebastiaen (Kreis/Circle)

Description:

Antwerpen 1573 - 1647
47 x 78 cm
View of a village landscape. Oil/wood.
Collection Ferdinand III Mülhens, Cologne.
Expert opinion Dr. Ursula Härting, Sept. 2023.
Not in Härting, Abraham Govaerts, Der Waldmaler (1589-1626), Antwerp 2004.
Since its purchase for the Mülhens Collection, presumably in the 1970s, the unsigned painting was considered to be a work by Abraham Govaerts. After viewing the original, Ursula Härting has rejected this attribution and sees the excellently preserved panel in the circle of the Antwerp painter Sebastiaen Vrancx.
On the right of the picture a path stretches into the depth of the picture. A rider with a foal rides towards the town, a ladder wagon is coming from there. On the left, between two groups of trees, a couple can be seen coming from the village green. She is carrying two baskets, the brim of her hat pulled low over her forehead; he is shouldering a heavy load from his forehead to his back, his nose is bulbous. Sheep and pigs graze on the meadow. The pigs are long-legged and pointy-nosed: all these motifs are characteristic of many figures by Vrancx, including many that have been carried on by his collaborators and his circle.
Vrancx varied the tree trunks and foliage with his own hands, he was not committed to a particular style of foliage, for example; only sometimes did he engage a tree painter, but not in this painting from Vrancx's circle.
The present painting is not as harmoniously developed in composition, and the foliage is denser here than usually found in Vrancx's own paintings. The anonymous painter here also took his cue from early, contemporary Antwerp models of landscapes, from prints or paintings by David Vinckboons or Abraham Govaerts, for example.
We thank Dr. Ursula Härting for valuable information.