Jan Brueghel D. J., Rocky river landscape with flight to Egypt. Oil on copper. (Early 1630s). 21.6 x 27 cm. Framed. //rg/47/4 When Jan Brueghel the Younger returned to his hometown to take over his father's studio after the outbreak of the plague in Antwerp in 1625, which had carried off his father Jan the Elder, he did not join the new landscape art of a Peter Paul Rubens, but continued his father's tradition. His landscape work consists to a large extent of copies or variants after found motifs of his father, which he developed further. The Brueghel fashion had reached its peak after his father's death, and the son could hardly satisfy the demand for paintings in his father's style. It was during this brief period, lasting only until about 1632, that our small panel was created in the early 1630s in the artistic succession of his father. It was formerly considered to be the work of Jan the Elder, which is not surprising, since it goes directly back to one of his compositions, which exists in two versions as a small-format circular composition: A signed version of the "Rocky River Landscape with the Flight into Egypt" was painted in 1600 (New York, Sotheby's, May 20, 1993, lot 25, cf. Klaus Ertz: Jan Brueghel the Elder (1568 - 1625). Landscapes with Christian Themes, Mythology, vol. 2, Lingen 2008, p. 514, cat. No. 232, ill.) and another version Klaus Ertz dates to around 1605 (London, private collection, cf. ibid., pp. 514-515, cat. no. 233, ill.). Jan translated his father's circular composition into a rectangle, which he used to expand the landscape to such an extent that the viewer can lose himself in it. Although Jan the Younger takes over his father's landscape silhouette with the houses connected by a bridge with a rider, he noticeably increases their distance from each other. Jan the Younger turns his father's short, gorge-like stream into a broad brook that runs through the composition and meanders through the picture in several steps, lined with rocks and lush riparian vegetation. Peppered with details copied from nature, such as the reeds or the broken trees, Jan the Younger, unlike his father, tells a different story, centered on the landscape. It is the main protagonist of the picture, and in Jan the Younger's work it takes on a creative depth that is far removed from his father. While his father encloses the landscape in the round, as it were, his son opens the view to a primeval landscape full of narrative details presented with the highest painterly skill, in which the people and Joseph's flight with Mary and the Christ child are only accessories - they are hardly recognizable as holy figures and could also be wanderers like the figures behind them. Jan Brueghel the Younger had previously depicted the theme of rest on the run repeatedly (cf. Ertz 1984, pp. 308-310, cat. Nos. 137-140, and pp. 314-319, cat. Nos. 147-151), but never embedded in such an expansive landscape as in our small copper plate. In this respect, the small panel also documents a change in which the Christian theme recedes behind the landscape, whose expansiveness is the focus of the depiction. That Brueghel was successful with his audience with such landscapes is also proven by a contemporary copy, almost corresponding in format to our version, which is in Gothenburg (Konstmuseum, Inv. No. GKM 1670, cf. Ertz 1979, p. 207, fig. 252). Peter Prange With expert opinion and photographic expertise by Dr. Klaus Ertz, Lingen, dated 18.11.2021 Literature: Klaus Ertz: Jan Brueghel the Elder (1568-1625). Die Gemälde mit kritischem Œuvrekatalog, Cologne 1979, p. 207, note 236. Exhibition: Catalogue of the exhibition: Das Flämische Landschaftsbild des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts, exhibition November 6-30, 1927, Galerie Dr. Gottschewski/Dr. Schäffer, Berlin 1927, p. 12, no. 20, plate XIV (as Jan Brueghel the Elder) Provenance: Galerie Dr. Gottschewski/Dr. Schäffer, Berlin, 1927 (as Jan Brueghel the Elder); Winkel og Magnussen, Copenhagen, auction 101, 29.10.1931, lot 8 (as Jan Brueghel the Elder); private collection, Denmark (acquired in above auction); Bruun Rasmussen, Copenhagen, auction, 3.11.1981, lot 6 (as Jan Brueghel the Elder); thereafter private property, Northern Germany. Taxation: differential taxation (VAT: Margin Scheme).