VP4090 PIETER GYSELS (1621 – Antwerp – 1690) A Townscape with Figures working in Bleaching Fields in the foreground On copper – 9⅞ x 12⅜ ins (22.6 x 31.6cm) PROVENANCE R. H. van Schaik, Wassenaar, 1934 (as Jan Brueghel I) Sale, Dorotheum, Vienna, 29-30 June 1939 (as Jan Brueghel I) Mossel Sale, Muller, Amsterdam 11-18 March, 1952 (as Jan Brueghel I) EXHIBITED P. de Boer, De Helsche en de Fluweelen Brueghel, Amsterdam, Feb-March 1934, no. 71 (as Jan Brueghel I) LITERATURE Peter Sutton, exh. cat. The Age of Rubens, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Sept 1993 to January 1994; Toledo Museum of Art, Feb 1994 to April 1994, p. 476, illustr. NARRATIVE In a large green meadow, bordered by a canal, men and women are occupied in various activities connected with washing and bleaching linen. A woman draws water from a well, while washerwomen labour in an open washhouse, or rinse items of laundry in narrow tanks of water. Some hang out garments to dry on a line and others lay them on the grass to bleach in the sun. Over to the right, small pieces of linen and articles of clothing are spread out in neat patterns and, in the foreground, women peg out long strips of uncut cloth in parallel lines. A cow and two sheep graze nearby, while children play in the spring sunshine. On the far side of the field, a tall thatch-roofed farmhouse can be seen and, beyond it, a cluster of village houses. A shaft of sunlight illuminates the mellow, red brickwork and highlights the fresh green foliage of trees. Although formerly attributed to Jan Brueghel the Elder, this little copper panel is characteristic of the small-scale, colourful landscapes painted by Pieter Gysels in the manner of Brueghel. Arnold Houbraken, writing in the eighteenth century, referred to Gysels as a pupil of Bruegheli, but he must have been mistaken, as Gysels was only four years old when Brueghel died in 1625. It is, of course, possible that Gysels studied with the younger Jan Brueghel, who painted in the style of his father, but it seems more likely that Houbraken made an assumption on the basis of similarities in style and subject matter. Gysels’s richly coloured and detailed paintings, which form the majority of his output, attest to the continuing demand for a type of landscape, developed by Velvet Brueghel in the first decade of the seventeenth century. In the present example, the wealth of detail and intense blue green palette, enlivened with accents of red, are strongly reminiscent of the famous Antwerp master. The subject of bleaching fields spread with linen belongs to the Flemish pictorial tradition of allegories of the months and seasons. These have their origins in the medieval books of hours, containing calendars of feast and saints’ days, in which the months were represented by landscapes typifying the season, with scenes of peasants carrying out tasks appropriate to the time of year. In 1565, Pieter Bruegel the Elder gave new impetus to this tradition with his large scale series of the Twelve Months, painted for the Antwerp merchant, Nicolaes Jonghelinck. In the later sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, a number of Flemish artists, such as Jacob and Abel Grimmer, Hans Bol, Maarten van Valkenborgh, Joos de Momper and Sebastiaen Vrancx painted cycles of the seasons, or pendants juxtaposing summer and winter, reflecting the popularity of this genre. In such representations, the motif of washing and bleaching linen was associated with the spring, as this was the time of year when the big spring wash took place after the winter months when no washing could be done. In a similar way, scenes of sowing, harvesting and hunting were used to illustrate the other seasons. Jan Brueghel the Elder and his son, Jan the Younger, both produced scenes of fields spread with washing, in collaboration with Joos de Momper. Most notable among them is the large canvas of A Market and Bleaching Fields, painted around 1620, which is now in the Prado, Madridii. The latter does not appear to have been conceived as part of a series, but it retains many of the characteristics of the earlier pictorial tradition, with its idealised landscape, inhabited by little figures carrying out seasonal tasks. Although the composition of Gysels’s painting is entirely of his own invention, it is close in spirit to Brueghel and de Momper’s example, which probably inspired him. In the 1640’s, David Teniers the Younger also painted views of bleaching groundsiii, demonstrating a greater concern for the accurate description of location and a more genre-like treatment of the figures. In the seventeenth century, public washing places and bleaching grounds existed all over the Northern and Southern Netherlands and were normally situated beside canals at the edge of town, or in the open countryside beyond. Motifs of bleaching grounds and the activities associated with them feature frequently in the landscapes of contemporary artists, particularly those working in the vicinity of Haarlem. They appear, for example, in prints by Claes Jansz. Visscher and Jan van de Velde II, as well as in works by Jacob van Ruisdael, including two panoramic views of Haarlem executed in the 1670’s, in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdamiv and the Mauritshuis, The Haguev, which record the extensive bleaching grounds to the north-west of the city. Unlike their Flemish counterparts, however, these Dutch landscapes contain no allegorical references, but instead concentrate on a direct approach to nature and an accurate depiction of local topography. Pieter Gysels was baptised in the St. Jacobskerk in Antwerp on 3 December 1621. Very little is known about his artistic training. Although Houbraken suggested erroneously that he was a pupil of Jan Brueghel the Elder, the only record of an apprenticeship is in 1641 with the unknown Antwerp painter, Jan Boots. In 1648/49, Gysels became a master in the Guild of St. Luke and the following year married Joanna Huybrecht, who bore him six children. One of his sons, Pieter Gysels the Younger (before 1650 – after 1675), also became a painter and may have been responsible for a group of still life paintings of game and hunting accessories, which differ distinctly from the father’s oeuvre. Pieter Gysels the Elder died in Antwerp in 1690. P.M. i Arnold Houbraken, De groote schouburgh, 1718-21, iii, p. 53. ii Joos de Momper and Jan Brueghel I, A Market and Bleaching Fields, on canvas, 166 x 194 cm, Madrid, Museo del Prado, inv. no. 1443. iii David Teniers II, The Bleaching Ground, signed, on canvas, 85x120 cm, Birmingham, The University of Birmingham, Barber Institute of Fine Arts, cat (1983), no. 99; The Bleaching Ground, signed, on panel, 48.5x69.5 cm, Dresden, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Gemäldegalerie. iv Jacob van Ruisdael, View of Haarlem with Bleaching Grounds, signed, on canvas, 43x38 cm, Amsterdam, The Rijksmuseum, inv. no. A351. v Jacob van Ruisdael, View of Haarlem with Bleaching Grounds, signed, early 1670’s, canvas, 55.5x62 cm, The Hague, Royal Cabinet of Paintings, inv. no. 155. .