Provenance: Collection of Stephan Delhaes (1843 –1901) painter and restorer of the Viennese branch of the Liechtenstein family (without stamp).
The authorship of the Praying Shepherd has been a matter of debate to the present day. Attributions have ranged from Pieter Bruegel through the assumption of his possible authorship to its unerring rejection. Pieter II Breughel (1564/5 –1637/8) has also been a proposed author; however, this cannot be substantiated on stylistic grounds. There is scarcely any starting point at out disposal in regard to the assessment of the drawing. It is not linked to any of the master’s extant works. Only two single figure drawings are known by him, namely the Goose Shepherd in the Kupferstichkabinett Dresden (inv. C2128, Mielke 1996, no. 57.) and the Piper in New York (Woodner Collection, Mielke 1996, no. 58.), even though they are fully elaborated. The watermark with a lion cannot be placed in time and space with certainty due to the lack of conclusive analogies.
Based on its monumental, bold conception and expressivity, the depiction has a close affinity with works from Bruegel’s late period. Scholars generally praise the elaborate detailing of the head, while they adopt a critical stance in regard to the robe and hands. Many have drawn a comparision with the master’s drawing in Vienna (Albertina, inv. 7.500/N.84. Mielke 1996, no. 60.) Painter and Connoisseur, which is problematic, due to the different categories the two drawings represent. While the Vienna sheet is a completed and fully elaborated, autonomous composition, the Praying Shepherd is an unfinished and sketchy figure study, or perhaps a copy or version made after such a
study. Mielke pointed out the similar hatching applied on the shepherd's robe in Painter and Connoisseur, and objected only to its proportions. He lists the drawing among the problematic ones for which no final attribution could be made.
Interestingly, during the series of attributions the name of Pieter Bruegel’s more talented son, Jan, has not emerged, presumably because not many figural drawings are known by him among the works he had made after his father. At the same time it cannot be excluded that at a young age Jan
copied his father’s figures but they were lost since they were not of such importance to collectors. The Adoration of the Magi (London, National Gallery, inv. 3547, Ertz 2008/10, no. 226.) painted by Jan Brueghel (1568–1625) in 1598, features a figure leaning on a stick on the right edge of the composition, which he borrowed from Pieter the Elder’s above mentioned Dresden drawing.
(Teréz Gerszi)
LITERATURE
Regteren Altena 1959
I. Q. van Regteren Altena, Meisterzeichnungen aus der Sammlung des Museum der Bildenden Künste in Budapest (14-18 Jahrhundert); Auswahl und Einleitung Lajos Vayer, Budapest, Corvina, 1956. (165-166)
Gerszi 1971
Teréz Gerszi, Netherlandish Drawings in the Budapest Museum, Sixteenth-Century Drawings. An Illustrated Catalogue. Budapest, 1971. (cat. 34)
Berlin 1975
Pieter Bruegel d. Ä. als Zeichner: Herkunft und Nachfolge. Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin, September 19–November 16, 1975. Catalogue by Fedja Anzelewsky, Peter Dreyer, Lutz Malke, Hans Mielke, Konrad Renger and Matthias Winner. Berlin, 1975. (cat. 93)
Mielke 1996
Hans Mielke, Pieter Bruegel: Die Zeichnungen. Turnhout, 1996. (Probl. 5)
Sellink 2007
Manfred Sellink, Bruegel. The Complete Drawings and Prints. Ghent, 2007. (Published also in Dutch in 2011). (279, X10)
Gerszi in Budapest 2012
The New Ideal of Beauty in the Century of Pieter Bruegel. Sixteenth-Century Netherlandish Drawings in the Museum of Fine Arts Budapest (catalogue to the exhibition ’The Age of Bruegel’), Szépművészeti Múzeum, Budapest, June 14–September 16, 2012. Catalogue by Teréz Gerszi with contribution of Bernadett Tóth. Budapest, 2012. (cat. 22)
