Physical description
The Garden of Eden at the edge of a wood with colourful animals in the foreground, a valley receding into distance on the left and the Temptation in the background on the right.
Place of Origin
Antwerp, Belgium (painted)
Date
ca. 1600 (painted)
Artist/maker
Brueghel, Jan (the elder), born 1568 - died 1625 (painter)
Materials and Techniques
oil on oak panel
Dimensions
Height: 53 cm estimate, Width: 84 cm estimate
Object history note
Bequeathed by George Mitchell, 1878
Historical significance: Jan Bruegel the Elder (1568-1625) was called 'velvet' for the delicacy of his brushwork and was famous for his atmospheric landscapes and riverscapes, illustrating a wide range of mythological, allegorical and biblical subjects as well as genre scenes and flowers pieces. This painting is a good example of his favourite subject matter: the Paradise as no less than 106 paradise landscapes are indeed attributed to Jan Bruegel the Elder including several versions of Noah's Ark and Adam and Even in the Garden of Even. The scene is taken from the Book of the Genesis in which it is said that a male and a female of every species, including the human, were present in the Garden of Eden. This work witnesses Jan Bruegel the Elder's ability to highly detailed and close depiction from life encyclopaedically displayed. The vegetation as well as some animals have sometimes been read emblematically. For instance, the lion is a symbol of Jesus Christ and resurrection, that echoes by contrast the scene of the Temptation and the forthcoming fall of Man that takes place in the background; the stag is an image of Good and a symbol of the soul eager to reach the divine; the bull is an allegory for patience and the sacrifice of Christ; the rose alludes to the purity of the Virgin Mary, the grape is an of Eucharistic symbol while the apple announces the redemption, etc. Many of these animals can be found in the same or reversed posture in Jan Bruegel's other versions of the theme. For example, the white horse is painted in reversed in the Galleria Doria Pamphilj's version. This painting reveals Bruegel's close observation of nature and his desire to demonstrate God's greatness through its pictorial representation, a will that is manifest in his correspondence with his lifetime patron, Cardinal Federico Borromeo.
Historical context note
Landscape paintings, i.e. the artistic representation of nature in terms of physical "view", were extremely popular during the 17th century and increasingly encompassed a variety of forms and genres. Flemish landscape tradition was already well developed in the mid 16th century with such artists as Pieter Bruegel the Elder (ca. 1525-1569) and Gillis van Coninxloo (1544-1607) who used to place small figures from mythological, biblical and historical subjects in the foreground. Based on a close observation of nature, most of these landscapes are paradoxically imaginary as they were conceived as resulting from an intellectual construction, a concept explained in the Flemish 'Vasari' Karel van Mander's Grondt der Edel vry Schilder-const (Principles of the noble art of painting) in 1604. This does not exclude a second tradition of landscape founded on a more direct approach to nature which great innovator was Hieronymus Cock (ca. 1510-1570) and that would particularly spread in the northern Netherlands, that is Holland, after the Eighty Years' War (1568-1648). By the later 16th century indeed, traditional artistic ties between northern and southern Netherlands, i.e. Holland and Flanders, changed radically as many Flemish artists such as for instance Gillis van Coninxloo and Jacob de Gheyn II (1565-1629) both from Antwerp, Roelandt Savery (1576-1639) and his brother Jacob the Elder (ca.1545-1602), natives of Coudrai, emigrated to Holland.
Descriptive line
Oil painting, 'The Temptation in the Garden of Eden', Jan Brueghel the Elder, ca. 1600
Bibliographic References (Citation, Note/Abstract, NAL no)
C.M. Kauffmann, Catalogue of Foreign Paintings, I. Before 1800, London: Victoria and Albert Museum, 1973, p. 49-50, cat. no. 51.
The following is the full text of the entry:
"Jan BRUEGHEL the elder (1568-1625)
Flemish (Antwerp) School
The son of Pieter Brueghel the elder (active 1551; d. 1569) he was born in Antwerp, where he was the pupil of P. Goetkind. He was in Italy 1593-96 and then settled in Antwerp, where he became a close friend of Rubens. He was dean of the Painters' Guild in 1601-02, and subsequently court painter to the Archduke Albert and Isabella, governors of the Netherlands. His landscapes, animal scenes and still-life paintings were very popular and were much copied and imitated.
51
THE GARDEN OF EDEN; IN THE BACKGROUND THE TEMPTATION
Oak panel
20¾ x 33 (53 x 84)
340-1878
Formerly described as 'attributed to Brueghel' (1893 Catalogue, p. 76; N. G., Summary catalogue, 1929, no. 1881), this painting was re-catalogued as by Jan Brueghel during its period on loan to the N. G. (Summary catalogue, 1958).
The composition was a popular one and there are countless versions and copies. There are replicas in the Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest (by Brueghel) and at Stourhead, Wilts. (National Trust, Catalogue, no. 24 'manner of Jan Brueghel'), and several others have appeared in sales: (I) Pierard Sale, Brussels, May 1889, lot 17; (2) Gagliardi sale, Jandola & Tavazzi, Rome, May 1908; (3) Kleykamp, The Hague, 1925 (photograph in Witt Library, Courtauld Institute); (4) Christie's, 9 Apr. 1965, lot 75, Lt.-Col. Corbett Collection; (5) Sotheby, 27 Mar. 1968, lot 37, Dalrymple Collection. A version with variations in the disposition of the animals is in the Royal Collection at Windsor (exh. Flemish art, R.A., 1953-54, no. 301). Finally, there are two copies signed by Brueghel's pupil, Isaak van Oosten (1613-61) in the Liechtenstein Gallery, Vaduz, and in the Toledo Museum of Art (Toledo Museum News, Summer 1960, p. 62).
The subject of Paradise was treated by Brueghel in a variety of other ways. Perhaps the best known is the picture in the Mauritshuis, The Hague, in which Brueghel painted the landscape and animals and Rubens the figures of Adam and Eve, which have been brought into the foreground (R. Oldenbourg, Rubens, K. d. K., 1921, p. 219, as c.1620). Other more or less similar compositions are in the Städelsches Kunstinstitut, Frankfurt, and Schloss Pommersfelden, Schönborn (both with the Creation of Eve), in the Palazzo Doria, Rome (G. Glück, Rubens, van Dyck und Ihr Kreis, 1933, p. 37, fig. 25); Sir A. D. F. Gascoigne Collection (exh. York, 1951, no. 7). Versions of an upright composition are in Berlin (no. 742) and in the Prado.
Several motifs in 340-1878 were inspired by Rubens: the derivation of the horse in the foreground from Rubens' Riding School in Berlin, is discussed by Glück (loc. cit.).
Prov. George Mitchell; bequeathed to the Museum in 1878.
Exh. On loan to the N. G., 1895-1960; Israel Museum, Jerusalem, Old Masters and the Bible, 1965, no. 1."
Summary catalogue The National Gallery, London, 1929, no. 1881
A catalogue of the National Gallery of British Art at South Kensington with a supplement containing works by modern foreign artists and Old Masters, 1893, p. 76.
Evans, M., The Painted World. From Illumination to Abstraction, London, 2005, p. 56 illus.
Exhibition History
Old Masters and the Bible (Israel Museum, Jerusalem 01/01/1965-31/12/1965)
Long loan (The National Gallery, London 01/01/1895-31/12/1960)
Associated names
Adam and Eve
Associated Events
Temptation of Adam and Eve
Materials
Oil paint; Oak
Techniques
Oil painting
Subjects depicted
Birds; Landscape; Animals; Christianity; Garden of Eden; The Bible, Garden of Eden; Biblical incidents, The Temptation
Categories
Christianity; Paintings; Gardens & Gardening
Collection code
PDP
