Old Masters

Our selection of Old Masters focuses on the North European schools, favoring high age Flemish and German Renaissance painting.

We focus particular attention on Brueghel, a circle representing, in reputation, value and importance, the absolute excellence of Flemish art. We can supply various types of paintings of the Brueghel Dynasty and their circle, studied for any type of purchase.

Finally, we also offer a selection of works from the Dutch Golden Age.

Jan Brueghel II e Frans Wouters

Pseudo - Blesius (and atelier)

Ambrosius Francken II

Martin Ryckaert

Jan van Kessel the Younger

Kerstiaen de Keuninck

Christiaen van Couwenbergh

Frans Pourbus I

Jan van Kessel The Elder

Jan Brueghel II and Pieter van Avont

Monogrammist HS

Jan Brueghel II and Pieter van Avont

Gillis Mostaert

Adam van Noort

The Master with the Parrot

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  Jan Brueghel II e Frans Wouters

  Allegory of Fire

  Oil on panel

  cm 56x89

  1640 ca.

  Expertise K. Ertz
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  Pseudo - Blesius (and atelier)

  Adoration of Magi

  Oil on panel

  cm 72x104

  1520 ca.

  Expertise Jan de Maere
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  Ambrosius Francken II

  Crucifixion

  Oil on panel

  cm 64x50

  1610 ca.

  Expertise Jan de Maere
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  Martin Ryckaert

  River Landscape with a village

  Oil on panel

  cm 27x32

  1610 ca.

  Expertise Luuk Pijl
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  Jan van Kessel the Younger

  Still life with squirrel, parrot and porcelain bowls

  Oil on canvas

  cm 34x42

  1660 ca.

  We are grateful to Klaus Ertz to have confirmed the attribution
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  Kerstiaen de Keuninck

  Mountain Landscape with a river

  oil on panel

  cm 81x120

  1620 ca.
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  Christiaen van Couwenbergh

  Th finding of Moses

  Oil on panel

  cm 123x,5x118

  Signed and dated 1640

  Published:

  Wolfgang C. Maier-Preusker, Christiaen van Couwenbergh (1604 – 1667) oeuvre und wandlungen eines hollaendischen caravaggisten, ed. Wallraf-Richartz-Jaharbuch – Band LII-1991.

  We are grateful to Professor Wayne E. Franits to have confirmed the quality and the attribution of the work
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  Frans Pourbus I

  Portrait of young man

  Oil on panel

  cm

  We are grateful to Koenraad Jonckheere to have suggested the current attribution
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  Jan van Kessel The Elder

  Study of insects with a flower of Borago Officinalis

  Oil on copper

  cm 10x16

  1650 ca

  Published and exhibited:

  "Brueghel. Capolavori dell'arte fiamminga". Venaria Reale, Torino, 2017.

  Expertise Klaus Ertz
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  Jan Brueghel II and Pieter van Avont

  Landscape with Holy Family

  Oil on copper

  cm 48x65

  1630 ca.

  Expertise K. Ertz

  Magnificent example of collaboration, following the widespread practice in Antwerp in the seventeenth century, between Brueghel the II as a landscape specialist and van Avont as a "staffage" painter, i.e. the painting of the characters. The composition is among the most famous of Brueghel the II and it was copied and imitated by many followers, due to its ability to combine the best sacred subject and the ideal landscape. By this way the evangelical episode of the rest from the escape into Egypt becomes the expedient to stage a nature with bright colors, with rich turquoise and aqua green accents, enhanced by a vast range of naturalistic details: from the rose garden to the right, to the fruits on top, from the deer that drinks in the crystalline stretch of water to the guinea pigs in the foreground. The very thin copper leaf on which the work - in perfect condition - was painted is of considerable size and it is likely that it was destined for the Spanish and Mexican market, according to a widespread commercial practice in vogue from the years '40 of the '600. Thanks to this practice the Flemish painting on copper of "brueghellian-style" had a diffusion and an unusual worldwide success. It is the undoubted ability of the "Brueghel style" to conquer the eye with such incredible ease, dissolving the most typical stylistic matter effortlessly and with infallible method, chiseling the details as in a goldsmith's work and always choosing a vibrant chromatic accord, with the objective to stimulate the gaze. The fat children who surround the Holy Family, then, add a further tone of delicacy to the scene, through an anecdotal and joyful attitude, full of "joie-de-vivre".
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  Monogrammist HS

  The Ill Matched Lovers with a Monk

  oil on panel, cm 28x42,5.

  We are grateful to Cranach Research Insitute and Dr. Peter Schmelzle to have confirmed the attribution of this work.

  Monogrammist HS (Active during the first part of XVII Century). Rare and enigmatic painter from Basel, a pupil of Lucas Cranach, specialized in the representation of allegorical subjects often soaked in a taste for the grotesque, erotic and enigmatic. Compared to his master, Krodel presents harsher tones, with female bodies represented in ivory color and smooth as porcelain, with the characters depicted close to their caricature, deliberately in an anti-classical and anti-Italian key.
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  Jan Brueghel II and Pieter van Avont

  Virgin with Child into a Landscape

  Olio on copper

  Cm 21x16,5

  1630 ca.

  With antique frame

  Expertise K. Ertz

  Delicious, minute work by Jan Brueghel the Younger in collaboration with P. van Avont for the figurative part, with a coeval frame and in perfect condition. This type of painting was intended for private devotion and / or ornamental use for the "cabinet des interieurs", where they were arranged to cover entire walls, along with other works. This kind of use can be clearly seen on the paintings depicting these galleries and often made by Frans Francken and Adriaen van Stalbempt, with an advertising function in order to show the works available on the Antwerp market. Stylistically, the work presents the pictorial tendencies of Jan II on his way to a greater detachment from his father's dictates, with the use of a darker chromatic range and the landscape conception as a visual glimpse attributing airiness and depth to the main scene. The meticulous rose garden on the right, the flowers and fruits at the feet of the Virgin represent an unmistakable stylistic code of the author. As always, Brueghel reveals his ability to maintain an excellent quality even in apparently secondary details, that marks the real difference between the Master and his followers.
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  Gillis Mostaert

  Paesaggio con la Distruzione di Sodoma e Gomorra

  olio su tavola

  Cm 40x54

  1570

  Expertise Luuk Pijl

  Renowned painter, he specialised in landscapes and deserved an honourable mention in The Lives by Giorgio Vasari due to his already considerable fame at the time. Mostaert was one of the most intelligent interpreters of Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s lesson, from whom he was able to deviate thanks to his inventiveness and through the creation of a distinctive style. The naïve mood can be regarded as a "work of subtraction", aimed at removing every formal and unnecessary element and at reducing the graphic sign, in order to leave room for large fields of bright and contrasting colours. The fantastic views that fill his paintings bursts with small figures, often made by other painters specialised in the staffage. Our composition is also known in another variant by the same author, whose subject is, however, the Autumn season and it differs in a significant number of details, both compositional and chromatic. The use of basic patterns to create several paintings was a widespread and established practice since Henri met de Bles. Mostaert was not far behind, often using the trick of changing the colours in which the characters or minor details were completed, as well as with the reversal or re-composition of various parts of the general scheme. However, starting from an identical basic structure and achieving such original and autonomous results is extremely rare.
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  Adam van Noort

  Madonna and Child with Saint Joseph

  Oil on panel

  79,4 x 56,8 cm

  1580 ca.

  Archived in RKD as Adam van Noort.

  Defined by Van Mander in 1604 as a "very skillful painter," van Noort is part of the Flemish painting already influenced by Italian art. He was stranger to the prevailing fashion, Van Noort managed one of the most popular ateliers in Antwerp and he was able to cope with a large number of students, including those who later became great masters such as Rubens (from 1592) and Van Dyck, who also made a famous portrait of his teacher. Known for his alternating moods, his life as a libertine and, often, his violence, Van Noort was always conscious of the limitations and skills of his students, directing their careers also through the collaboration with the atelier of Otto Van Veen. His works were mainly biblical and of allegorical disobedience and portraits made for the Sint-Lucas gilde (the author was a member) have not been preserved. The work, part of the prestigious Goudstikker collection, is considered as of today one of the most significant - and certain of attribution - still in private hands. Despite the religious subject, the scene is treated with an extreme naturalism, aiming to portray a simple mother with a child in a moment of lyrical intimacy rather than something grand and academic. The sculpted cradle, together with details such as the cushion and the string of pearls on the Madonna's forehead, are remarkable for their realistic rendering. The paneggi, the incarnate and the architectures on the background, however, are clearly of Italian influence.
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  The Master with the Parrot

  Madonna with Child (Virgo Lactans)

  oil on panel

  44,5x32,5 cm

  1530 ca.

  The author takes his name from an in-depth article that the art historian Maximilian Friedlander dedicated him in 1948, where the scholar gathered a first number of works around a personality whose name was at the time unknown, but it turned out to be enough clear from a stylistic point of view. The curious nickname derives from the insistence and typicality that we can find in a certain number of works where the presence of a parrot is shown. However, as of today it is possible to assign to the artist a more varied and broader number of works, also thanks to the recent discovery of a Madonna and Child (without parrot) signed in full "Cornelis Bazelear Fecit" of unquestionable stylistic clarity. In addition to this, it has been hypothesized with ample plausibility that the painters working around and under Bazelaer constituted a substantial workshop which, between Antwerp and Bruges, carried out in a unitary style a series of devotional works, especially intended for the international market. The practice was very widespread also in other ateliers (Pieter Coeck, Joos van Cleve, etc.) and basically indicates a conception of the work of art as produced in two phases, a first theoretical conceived by the Master and a second one often realized by his students. In the best examples, like this one, the Master of the Parrot shows a delicate style, a wise synthesis between the Bruges tradition - still archaic - and the innovations of plasticism and the use of light that Pieter Coeck, Jan Gossaert and Quantyn Metsys were gradually introducing into the flemish painting of Antwerp. The pearly complexion, the intimate mother-son relationship and the meticulous details of the crown accentuate the refined devotional and symbolic tone, thanks to the contribution of the dark background from which the figures emerge as in a sacred vision.