1021 - Gillis Mostaert

Gillis Mostaert Village Kermis with Soldiers Oil on panel (parquetted). 64.5 x 102.5 cm. Provenance Millon & Associés, Paris, 13 December 2013, lot 23; – Belgian private collection; – Dorotheum, Vienna, 10 November 2020, lot 70; – Belgian private collection. In Gillis Mostaert's Village Kermis, colorful diversion prevails among the feasting peasants, extending deep into the landscape. Yet a military presence is also discernible. In the present Flemish kermis, the actual religious occasion has become a secondary matter; instead, lively fairground spirit dominates, with eating, drinking, dancing and all manner of games and contests. In front of the central house in the middle ground, a food stall has been set up. Two bagpipers play for a round dance, while to the left and right of the house a procession and a theatrical performance are taking place. Mostaert's painting holds in store numerous further small and minute scenes of the bustle and of peasant life for the wandering eye. Mixed in among these, however, is also the political reality of the Southern Netherlands: during the second half of the sixteenth century, Flanders was the setting of the Eighty Years' War. Spanish, Walloon and German mercenary troops were ever present and caused unrest. In Mostaert's kermis, they can be seen in the foreground, in grey, engaged in debate, and in the left middle ground fencing with swords. A small boy in yellow on the right side of the picture has even dressed up as a soldier, with a wooden sword and a bowl on his head. The Antwerp painter Gillis Mostaert, twin brother of Frans (1528–1560) and grandson of Jan Mostaert (c. 1475–1555), is from a well-known family of painters. In this he resembles his contemporary Pieter Brueghel the Elder, whose influence is evident here.