17th CENTURY FLEMISH CASE, WORKSHOP OF Pierre BRUEGHEL the Y - Lot 29

17th CENTURY FLEMISH CASE, WORKSHOP OF Pierre BRUEGHEL the Younger The Payment of Tithes Panel transposed on a parquet panel Height: 77 cm, Width: 123.5 cm. No frame. (Old restorations). Provenance : - Probably sale M. Haas, ministre plénipotentiaire, Paris (Mes Rochoux et Delbergue), November 12-14, 1860 ; - Anonymous sale, Paris, Palais Galliera, December 8, 1964, no. 71 (attributed to Pieter II Brueghel, canvas, transposed and restored, 75 x 120 cm, 6,000 fr) ; - Anonymous sale, London, Sotheby's, April 20, 1988, no. 50 (Pierre Brueghel III, panel transposed on canvas, 76 x 123 cm); - Acquired from Galerie Crouzet, 1988 (Pierre III Brueghel). Bibliography: G. Marlier, Pierre Brueghel le Jeune, Bruxelles, 1969, page 439, no. 32; K. Ertz, Pieter Brueghel der Jüngere (1564-1637/38), Die Gemälde mit kritischem Oeuvrekatalog, Band I, Lingen, 1998/2000, p. 516, F. 536, reproduced (75 x 120 cm, transposed from panel to canvas. Could be a studio work). Pieter Brueghel II, eldest son of Peter Breughel the Elder, is the brother of Jan Breughel, known as de velours. Orphaned at an early age, the children were taken in by their grandmother Mayken Verhulst, herself a miniature painter and widow of Pieter Coecke van Aelst, in Antwerp. Later, the artist completed his training with landscape painter Gillis van Coninxloo. He was admitted to the Antwerp Guild of Saint Luke, and listed as an independent master in the register for the years 1584-1585. There are some thirty autographed versions, signed or unsigned, of this famous composition by Pierre Breughel II, painted between 1609 and 1621. The treatment of the subject underwent a slight evolution from 1618 onwards. The first series shows the character furthest to the left with gray or light-colored sleeves, and can be found on works before 1617. After this date, a dark cloth covers the back wall and the left-hand character's sleeves turn red. Entitled "The Payment of Tithes", or sometimes "The Peasants' Advocate", the subject of this painting is the subject of much debate. Yet the main figure behind the desk, always depicted with a prominent chin, wears an ecclesiastical cap that identifies him as a man of the cloth. He has certainly come to collect tithes, a tax used to build churches, publish the Scriptures and, more generally, for missionary work. This tax, introduced by the Carolingians, was paid by all the people, but the poorest populations found it difficult to pay a tax deemed too heavy and unfair. The tax collector is assisted in his task by a man standing to his left, and a clerk busy scribbling behind a counter on the other side of the room takes part in the scene. To his right, another consults the calendar on the wall. The other protagonists are farmers: there are four of them in the foreground, one of whom is waiting for the basket of eggs and presents his wife is pulling from a sack. To the left, a man hesitantly slips through the half-open door behind the one standing timidly at the entrance. The room is a mess and a heap of papers. The tax collector, with his prominent forehead and receding chin, bears a clear resemblance to the Habsburgs (Philip II in particular, who died in 1598), whose rule over Flanders extended from 1556 to 1713. The peasants, timid and frightened, underwent the dictates of the occupying power and came, sheepishly, to pay the tax with their only riches: chickens, eggs and grapes. Some historians suggest that the painter was inspired by a prototype by Parisian painter Nicolas Baullery, although no such original has yet been found to support this hypothesis.