Collection particulière, France

An Antwerp poet and painter, Sébastien Vrancx is famous for his scenes of battles and brigands. Although his repertoire was very extensive, he was essentially a ‘cabinet painter’, painting rustic scenes in which he renewed the tradition established by Pieter Brueghel, and society pictures of aristocratic elegance.

Following his apprenticeship with Adam van Noort, according to Carel van Mander, Vrancx travelled to Italy. Charles Sterling assumes that, like Joos de Momper, he established relations with Ludovico Pozzoserrato, a Flemish artist active in Italy. Although he spent time in Italy, he remained deeply attached to his native Flanders, which is reflected in his becoming a member of the Guild of Saint Luke in Antwerp. On his return to the city, he combined the Brueghelian tradition with popular scenes in the Italianate style of Pozzoserrato. Taking up themes dear to Brueghel, such as the months and seasons, here he has depicted the harvest, or an allegory of summer.

In the foreground, a shepherd has allowed a group of sheep to wander off down a path, while a picnic takes place in a field where hay is being cut and gathered. In the distance, two men are busy loading grain onto a cart. The theme of the four seasons met with considerable success, as shown by the works of Pieter Brueghel I, which were interpreted in engraving by Pieter van der Heyden and thus widely circulated. The calendar was illustrated with specific activities for each month of the year. For the representations of summer months, it was common practice, beginning with the illuminated manuscripts of the Middle Ages, to depict the harvesting of fruit, haymaking and reaping. The figure drinking from a jug is, in fact, a tribute to Pieter Brueghel I, who featured a man quenching his thirst in this way in his work representing summer, translated into an engraving by Pieter van der Heyden. Abel Grimmer (1570-1618) produced other versions painted from the same prototype, which he probably included in a series on the four seasons (1). As with many of the works derived from the Brueghel repertoire, the question of the original version may arise, but our panel is a fine example of the tremendous reception of the theme of the four seasons.

1.    As an example, the painting sold in Vienna in 1922 (Anonymous sale; Vienna, Dorotheum, 4-5 November 1992, n° 134). We refer to the catalogue raisonné for the artist: Reine de Bertier de Sauvigny, Jacob et Abel Grimmer, 1991, p. 268, n° 28, p. 352, ill. pl. 95 (panel, 26,5 x 38 cm, Gallery Richard Green, Londron).

We would like to thank Joost Vander Auwera who kindly confirmed the attribution of this work in a letter of 13 June 2024. In his opinion, the work could have been painted in around 1608.