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拍品专文
At the time of the 2011 sale, Francesca Cappelletti confirmed the attribution to Paul Bril on the basis of photographs, noting the 'simplification of space in the composition, with the isolation of the monument and the inventiveness of the everyday scene in the foreground' ('semplificazione spaziale della composizione, con l'isolamento del monumento e la inventività della scena di genere in primo piano') and suggesting a date of execution between 1615 and 1620. Prior to the sale, Luuk Pijl also confirmed the attribution of the staffage to Paul Bril in full, after first-hand examination, proposing that the landscape may have been executed by a studio assistant following the master's design. A version of the composition on panel (Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, inv. no. 493) was given by George Keyes to Willem van Nieulandt (Cornelis Vroom: Marine and Landscape Artist, II, Utrecht, 1975, pp. 221-222, under no. D17) and by Pijl to the workshop of Bril. A related drawing showing the Tomb of Cecilia Metella but without the activity in the foreground is given by Keyes to Cornelis Vroom (op. cit., no. D17, fig. 79), an attribution which has subsequently been called into question. Pijl notes that there are other late, unsigned works by Bril, for example the fine View of Bracciano (Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide), which functioned as an overdoor.
Bril retained an excellent command of his pictorial skills even in his seventies; for example, his Landscape with the Temptation of Christ, signed and dated 1626, was painted when the artist was 72 years old. The activity in which the figures in the foreground are engaged is not entirely clear: perhaps their presence here refers to the growing interest in archaeology at this time, with figures exploring the classical ruins scattered throughout the Roman Campagna. The stately tower of the Tomb of Cecilia Metella, with its frieze of bulls' heads and garlands delicately picked out by the artist, was an architectural feature that would also inspire Bril's friend and collaborator Jan Brueghel the Elder, who, like the elegant figures in the present picture, had visited the site, and in whose work an echo of the tower can be spotted countless times (see K. Ertz, Jan Brueghel der Ältere: Die Gemälde, II, Lingen, 2008-2010, nos. 268, 275, 277, 293 and others, fig. 268/1 a drawing after Matthijs Bril II, Paul Bril's brother).
Bril retained an excellent command of his pictorial skills even in his seventies; for example, his Landscape with the Temptation of Christ, signed and dated 1626, was painted when the artist was 72 years old. The activity in which the figures in the foreground are engaged is not entirely clear: perhaps their presence here refers to the growing interest in archaeology at this time, with figures exploring the classical ruins scattered throughout the Roman Campagna. The stately tower of the Tomb of Cecilia Metella, with its frieze of bulls' heads and garlands delicately picked out by the artist, was an architectural feature that would also inspire Bril's friend and collaborator Jan Brueghel the Elder, who, like the elegant figures in the present picture, had visited the site, and in whose work an echo of the tower can be spotted countless times (see K. Ertz, Jan Brueghel der Ältere: Die Gemälde, II, Lingen, 2008-2010, nos. 268, 275, 277, 293 and others, fig. 268/1 a drawing after Matthijs Bril II, Paul Bril's brother).