A tipsy scene of peasants dancing at a wedding, previously thought to be a copy but recently attributed to the 17th-century Flemish painter Pieter Brueghel the Younger, will form the centrepiece of the first exhibition in the UK on the Brueghel family of artists. The new discovery brings the Holburne Museum’s tally of works by the younger Brueghel to three–more than any other institution in the UK.
Another recent revelation in the Somerset museum’s collection, Boy Blowing Bubbles by David Teniers the Younger, earlier thought to be by an imitator but now accepted as a genuine work by the master, will also go on show in Brueghel: Defining a Dynasty (11 February until 4 June 2017).
The exhibition will attempt to unravel the complex and confusing Brueghel family tree, spanning four generations over 150 years. At the head of the clan was Pieter Brueghel the Elder, whose success has–until relatively recently–cast a shadow over that of his sons’, Pieter Brueghel the Younger and Jan Brueghel the Elder. Works by their children–Pieter Brueghel III and Jan Brueghel the Younger–as well as those by David Teniers and Hieronymus van Kessel, who married into the family, will also go on display.
Despite the dominance of male artists in the Brueghel family, Jennifer Scott, the director of the Holburne Museum, and her co-curator Amy Orrock now believe Mayken Verhulst was responsible for teaching Pieter Brueghel the Younger and Jan Brueghel the Elder to paint after their father died when they were toddlers. Verhulst was married to a painter and was herself a successful miniaturist.
Several important loans will contribute to the Bath exhibition of 35 paintings. Most notable among these is Pieter Brueghel the Younger’s The Procession to Calvary, which was saved for the nation in 2011 when Nostell Priory in West Yorkshire acquired the painting after a public appeal. “This exciting new exhibition not only shines a light on the quality of the Holburne Museum’s Flemish paintings, but also on the wealth of paintings by the Brueghel dynasty in the UK,” Scott says. Brueghel: Defining a Dynasty is sponsored by Bath Spa University.
