Landscape with camels
(Bouvignes? c. 1510 - after 1554)
This work on copper by Henri met de Bles was first documented in connection with the Borghese Collection in 1790. It shows one of the most common motifs of 16th-century Flemish painters, namely a rocky precipice which dominates a deep valley dotted by numerous buildings. An exquisite collector’s piece of refined skill, the work also depicts two miniature camels escorted by several small figures in the lower right hand corner, who are completely immersed in a landscape traversed by birds.
Object details
Inventory
Location
Date
Classification
Period
Medium
Dimensions
Frame
Late 18th-century frame, 24 x 84.5 x 4 cm
Provenance
Rome, Borghese Collection, 1790 (Inventory 1790, room VII, no. 102; Della Pergola 1959); Inventario Fidecommissario Borghese 1833, p. 26. Purchased by Italian state, 1902.
Exhibitions
- 2000 Namur, Musée des Arts anciens
Conservation and Diagnostic
- 1952 Augusto Vermehren;
- 2000 Laura Ferretti.
Commentary
The provenance of this painting is still unknown. In spite of the number ‘22’, visible in the lower central portion of the work, it is first identifiable in the Borghese documentation in 1790, when the inventory of that year ascribed it to Ludovico Mattioli of Bologna, a name repeated in the Inventario Fidecommissario of 1833. Adolfo Venturi (1893) was the first critic to ascribe it to Henri met de Bles, the Flemish painter known as ‘Civetta’ for his inclusion of an owl in his works. This attribution was confirmed by Leo Van Puyvelde (1950), Charles de Tolnay (1956) and Paola della Pergola (1959) as well as by later critics (Serck 2000; Herrmann Fiore 2006). The only dissenting voice was Roberto Longhi (1928), who proposed the name of Lucas van Valckenborch.
The work depicts a deep valley dominated by a rocky precipice covered in lush vegetation, similar to the Landscape with Saint Jerome attributed to Cornelis Massys (Musée di Grenoble, inv. no. 950), which Luc Serck dated to roughly 1560 (see Serck 2000). Serck proposed the same date for the work in question, which, he believed, served as the model for a drawing held in Berlin (Serck 2000, p. 228, no. 36).
As critics (Della Pergola, Serck 2000) have emphasised, this work on copper contains a number of features often found in Flemish paintings, indicating a process of continuous exchange between artists of different generations. At the same time, when some of these became active in Italy, they did not hesitate to adopt new motifs. In this case, de Bles reproduced two camels, which he certainly took from the landscapes of Girolamo da Carpi, the artist from Ferrara in service at the Este court, where ‘Civetta’ stayed for some time before meeting his death there.
Antonio Iommelli
Bibliography
- G. Piancastelli, Catalogo dei quadri della Galleria Borghese, in Archivio Galleria Borghese, 1891, p. 215;
- A. Venturi, Il Museo e la Galleria Borghese, Roma 1893, p. 185;
- R. Longhi, Precisioni nelle Gallerie Italiane, I, La R. Galleria Borghese, Roma 1928, p. 213;
- L. van Puyvelde, La Peinture Flamande à Rome, Bruxelles 1950, p. 86;
- C. De Tolnay, An Unknown Early Panel by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, in Scritti di Storia dell’Arte in onore di Lionello Venturi, I, Roma 1956, pp. 421, 425;
- P. della Pergola, La Galleria Borghese. I Dipinti, II, Roma 1959, p. 176, n. 259;
- L. Serck, in Autour de Henri Bles, catalogo della mostra (Namur Musée des Arts Anciens du Namurois, 2000), a cura di Société Archéologique de Namur, Namur 2000, p. 228, n. 36;
- K. Herrmann Fiore, Galleria Borghese Roma scopre un tesoro. Dalla pinacoteca ai depositi un museo che non ha più segreti, San Giuliano Milanese 2006, p. 127.
