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Peasant carrying a jar (recto)

Maker

(artist)
1576-1639

Formerly attributed to
(artist)
1525-1569

Title

Date of Production

1603-1609

Medium

black chalk, pen and brown ink, with brown ink framing lines (recto), black chalk (verso), on laid paper [examined under microscope, no graphite visible]

Dimensions

Height: 15.5 cm
Width: 8.1 cm

Accession Number

D.1978.PG.319

Mode of Acquisition

Count Antoine Seilern, bequest, 1978

Credit

The Courtauld, London (Samuel Courtauld Trust)

Copyright

Work in the public domain

Location

Not currently on display

Keywords

Label Text

This half-length figure study of a Prague citizen is one of the so-called ‘naer het leaven’ (‘after the life’) drawings once attributed to Pieter Bruegel the Elder but now thought to be the work of Roelandt Savery. A group of around eighty of these drawings was removed from Bruegel’s oeuvre around 1970 when scholars recognised that the models were dressed in seventeenth-century garb from Prague. Watermarks in the paper further confirm the sheets’ later dating.

Provenance

Nathan Chaikin (Switzerland), by June 1959; purchased from him via Colnaghi (London) by Count Antoine Seilern, London (1901-1978), 7 December 1963 (£3,300); Princes Gate Bequest 1978

Exhibition History

Drawings Gallery Display - Bruegel / Not Bruegel, The Courtauld Gallery, London, 16/01/2016-17/04/2016

Summer Showcase - Unfinished, The Courtauld Gallery, London, 18/06/2015-20/09/2015

Literature

Spicer-Durham, Joaneath, The drawings of Roelandt Savery, PhD thesis, Yale University 1979
no. C 174 F 172 (recto) on p. 604 and C 175 (verso) on p. 605

Seilern, Count Antoine, Flemish paintings and drawings at 56 Princes Gate, London SW7. Addenda, London 1969; IV
no. 319
pl. XXXIII (recto), fig. 58 (verso)
in file

Münz, Ludwig, Bruegel: the drawings, London 1961
App.5 (recto) and App. 6 (verso) on p. 240
App.5 (recto), App.6 (verso) ...More

de Tolnay, Charles, 'Remarques sur quelques dessins de Bruegel l'ancien et sur un dessin de Bosch récemment réapparus' in 'Bulletin Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique', Sept. 1960 - pp. 3-28; 1/2
pp. 18ff
figs. 12, 13 ...Less

Inscriptions

Watermark: Watermark: Recto, lower right corner: part of an eagle's wing and talons (Peter Bower had no further information on this mark, but the paper is the same as PG.318. See Spicer, 'Naer het Leven' in 'Master Drawings', 1970, pp. 6-8 for eagle watermarks often found quartered on naer het leven sheets now given to Savery).

Inscription: Recto: from top to bottom on right side of sheet, all in brown ink, artist's hand, (colour) descriptions: "omber mus" [umber-coloured hat]; "bruinocker / rock" [brown ochre garment]; "gel wit bai" [yellow white baize]; "rot tas" [red bag]; "swartte p[urpere]" [black purple?]; "naer het leuen" [from the life].

Collector's mark: none. Seilern 1969 notes that on the verso of the original mount, now removed and missing, there was a collector's mark that he had been unable to identify.

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