Provenance
Duke of Chandos, Canons, Edgware, Middlesex; by descent in his family;[1] (Galerie Nissl, Vaduz); purchased 10 February 2000 through (Galerie Sanct Lucas, Vienna) by NGA.
[1] The dealer's invoice to the NGA gives the provenance as "The duke of Chandos, Stowe, thence by descent to the present owner." It has not been possible to determine which duke of Chandos first owned the painting. The first duke of Chandos was James Brydges (1673-1744); he received the title in 1719 and had a large picture collection at his estate, originally known as Cannons. After his two sons, his immediate family had no direct male descendants, and the Brydges connection was handed down through women in the family. The first duke's great-granddaughter, Anna Eliza [1779-1836], married Richard Nugent-Temple-Grenville [1776-1839], who held many titles, including 1st duke of Buckingham and Chandos. Anna Eliza took to her husband's seat in Stowe the bulk of her family's papers, which have been at the Huntington Library in San Marino, California, since 1925. The couple's descendants also used the Chandos title, and most of the dukes of Buckingham and Chandos collected paintings. See P.G.M. Dickson and J.V. Beckett, "The Finances of the Dukes of Chandos: Aristocratic Inheritance, Marriage, and Debt in Eighteenth-Century England," _Huntington Library Quarterly_ 64, nos. 3 and 4 (2001): 309-355; Joan Johnson, _Princely Chandos, James Brydges 1674-1744_, London, 1984: 172, 175-176; C.H. Collins Baker and Muriel Baker, _The Life and Circumstances of James Brydges First Duke of Chandos_, Oxford, 1949: xii, xv, 69-83; John Beckett, _The Rise and Fall of the Grenvilles: Dukes of Buckingham and Chandos, 1710 to 1921_, Manchester and New York, 1994.
Accession Number
2000.4.1
Medium
oil on copper
Dimensions
overall: 20.7 x 32.1 cm (8 1/8 x 12 5/8 in.) | framed: 31.4 x 42.9 x 3.8 cm (12 3/8 x 16 7/8 x 1 1/2 in.)
Classification
Painting
Credit Line
Patrons' Permanent Fund and Nell and Robert Weidenhammer Fund
Tags
Painting Baroque (1600–1750) Oil Painting Copper Flemish
Background & Context
Background Story
River Landscape from 1607 is one of Jan Brueghel the Elder's small-scale cabinet paintings on copper, depicting a river landscape with the meticulous detail and atmospheric perspective that distinguish his best work in the medium. The copper support allows a level of detail and luminosity that panel or canvas cannot match, and the small scale of the painting is characteristic of the cabinet paintings that were collected by aristocratic patrons throughout Europe. The 1607 date places this in the period when Jan Brueghel was developing the river landscape type that would become one of his most popular subjects, with the winding river creating a compositional spine that leads the eye into the distance.
Cultural Impact
Jan Brueghel's cabinet paintings on copper are among the most accomplished small-scale paintings in the history of European art because they combine meticulous detail with atmospheric perspective in a format that demands the highest level of technical skill. River Landscape on copper demonstrates why Jan Brueghel's cabinet paintings were so sought after by aristocratic collectors: the copper support allows a level of detail and luminosity that creates a miniature world of extraordinary beauty and precision.
Why It Matters
River Landscape is Jan Brueghel's cabinet painting at its most luminous: a river landscape on copper with the meticulous detail and atmospheric perspective that made his small-scale paintings the most sought-after cabinet pictures in early 17th-century Europe. The 1607 painting creates a miniature world of extraordinary beauty on a copper support.