London, Royal Academy, Flemish Art 1300-1700, Winter 1953-4, no. 397.

Lucas van Valckenborch the Elder was the most prominent member of a large family of Flemish painters.  He was born in Louvain, but joined the painters’ guild in Mechelen in 1560.  Like many Flemish artists of his generation, his life was disrupted by war and the threat of religious persecution.  Following the iconoclastic riots - known as the Beeldenstorm - that swept through the Southern Netherlands in 1566, Lucas fled abroad, first to Liège, and then to Aachen, where his brother Marten van Valckenborch had already taken refuge.  Around 1574/75, he returned to Antwerp, and in 1579, he became court painter to the Archduke Matthias, Governor of the Southern Netherlands, in Brussels.   Around 1582, he followed his royal patron to Linz, before finally settling permanently in Frankfurt am Main. 

Lucas van Valckenborch was primarily a painter of landscapes, though he also painted portraits, large-scale allegories of the seasons and market scenes.  His landscapes provide the settings for the depiction of small scenes from the Bible, or from everyday life.  His earliest works date from 1567, while his latest are from around 1594.  Many of his works bear his monogram ‘LVV’ (with the ‘L’ placed under the two ‘Vs’ until 1570 and above them thereafter) and the date. 

Although Valckenborch spent much of his career abroad, he remained steeped in the artistic traditions of his homeland.  His landscapes are reflective of the Antwerp tradition of sweeping panoramic views taken from a high vantage point that was developed in the early sixteenth century by such artists as Joachim Patinir (1480-1524) and Herri met de Bles (1510-1550).   Valckenborch’s biographer Karel van Mander tells us that Lucas learnt to paint landscapes in Mechelen, where a local artistic speciality was Waterschilderen – large-scale scenes painted in watercolour or tempera used as wall decorations instead of costly tapestries.  While In Mechelen, the young Valckenborch must have crossed paths with Hans Bol (1534-1593), his almost exact contemporary, as his work attests to his admiration for Bol’s realistic, miniaturist landscapes, painted in gouache and watercolour.  Another formative influence was that of the great peasant and landscape painter Pieter Bruegel the Elder (c. 1525-1569), who had himself resided briefly in Mechelen in 1550/51, and whose legacy impacted a whole generation of Flemish masters. 

Although Valckenborch’s work was rooted in his Flemish artistic heritage, he forged a distinctive idiom of his own and made significant contributions to landscape painting of his time.   He painted topographically accurate landscapes and imaginary scenes, as well as landscapes that combine realistically observed places with elements drawn from the imagination.  He often based his landscapes on drawings that he had made directly from nature during his various travels.  These provided him with a repertoire of motifs for his painted compositions.   It is thought that some of his drawings were also used by Joris Hoefnagel (1542-1600) for his designs for the six-volume atlas, the Civitates Orbis Terrarum, published by Georg Braun and Frans Hogenberg between 1572 and 1617. 

This colourful painting, with its distant skyline of Antwerp, must have been painted shortly after Valckenborch took up residence in the city.  Although the precise date of his arrival is not recorded, the date of 1574 inscribed on the panel provides strong evidence that he was already there by 1574, or possibly even before.  The theme of the wedding feast in the outdoors is derived from the popular paintings and prints of this subject by Pieter Bruegel the Elder.  Valckenborch’s interest in such themes was likely stimulated at this time by his encounter at first hand with examples of Bruegel’s work in private collections in and around Antwerp.   Also in 1574, Valckenborch also painted a pair of tondi depicting a landscape with a wedding feast and another with peasants dancing, both today in the National Gallery of Art in Copenhagen (i).     

Lucas van Valckenborch located his wedding feast in the verdant countryside outside Antwerp.   A group of farm buildings, with a dovecote and a large thatched barn, provides the setting for the wedding celebrations.  The artist has peppered the scene with little vignettes - what Karel van Mander called storykens (‘little stories’) in his influential Schilder-Boeck of 1604.  The bride, wearing a bridal crown, is seated at a long table surrounded by other members of the family.  Little groups of gaily dressed peasants are dotted about the field in front of the buildings: some sit about chatting, or indulge in drinking and feasting, while others dance energetically to the strains of a bagpiper.  In the left-hand corner, tempers have flared and a fight has broken out between two men brandishing swords: others try to intervene to keep them apart. A third man, his sword drawn, is held back from entering the fray.  All the commotion has upset a small child, who sits on the grass howling, while an excited dog barks.  In contrast, a fisherman, seated quietly beneath a tall tree in the right foreground, casts his line upon the tranquil waters of a small river, his catch spread out on the ground beside him.   The highly descriptive account of the landscape, especially in the delicate, naturalistic treatment of the foliage and other herbage, is typical of Valckenborch’s early work.  Also characteristic is the intensely green palette enlivened with cheerful accents of colour in the clothing of the nimble little figures.     

Valckenborch appears to have gleaned the motif of the farm with a dovecote from an earlier source.  However, which of the several known sources he used as the basis for his composition cannot be ascertained.  It is possible that he was familiar with the so-called Errera Sketchbook, a bound volume of pen drawings of landscapes, trees, mountains and townscapes from the second quarter of the sixteenth century, now in the collection of the Royal Museums of Fine Arts in Brussels.   The album, which was formerly attributed to Valckenborch himself, contains a sheet depicting largely the same scene with an almost identical group of farm buildings. However, the same farmhouse also features in at least three further paintings, including a panel attributed to Herri met de Bles (Brussels, Royal Museums of Fine Arts, inv. no. 4704), an anonymous version dated 1545, and the background of a painting depicting Christ Carrying the Cross, also ascribed to Herri met de Bles (both formerly in the collection of Marcus Kappel, Berlin). 

As the provenance of this painting indicates, it once formed part of the celebrated collection belonging to John Rushout (1770-1859), one of the greatest connoisseurs of the nineteenth century.   As a young man, Rushout travelled extensively in Italy, where he developed a deep love of art, in particular Italian Old Masters.  In 1800, he succeeded his father as 2nd Baron Northwick and devoted himself to building his art collection, which was housed initially at Northwick Park in Gloucestershire.    In 1838, he purchased Thirlestaine House, a Greek revival mansion in Cheltenham, in order to display his by then extensive collection.  Every afternoon between one and three o’clock, the doors of his gallery were opened to the public free of charge.   Northwick continued to add to his collection, which eventually numbered more than 1400 pictures and included sculpture, gems, coins and manuscripts. After his death, Thirlestaine House and its collections were sold.   The Valckenborch, which at that time was mistakenly attributed to Pieter Brueghel the Younger, was acquired by Sir Thomas Phillips, a Governor of the British Museum, who also eventually purchased the house as well.     

BIOGRAPHY

Lucas van Valckenborch the Elder is the best-known member of a large family of Flemish artists, which included his older brother Marten van Valckenborch the Elder (1534-1612), and Marten’s two sons, Frederik and Gillis.  Born in Louvain (Leuven) around 1535/36, Lucas joined the painters’ guild in Mechelen (Malines) in 1560, as Marten had done the year before.  Four years later, he took an apprentice, Jaspar van der Linden.  Lucas married and had a son, Marten van Valckenborch II (before 1566-1597). Following the iconoclastic riots that broke out in 1566 and spread through the Southern Netherlands, Lucas, whose family probably had Protestant leanings, left his homeland and took refuge abroad.  In 1567, he was in Liège and by 1570 he had joined his brother Marten in Aachen.  Lucas returned to Antwerp around 1574 to 1575, and in 1579, he became court painter to Archduke Matthias, Governor of the Spanish Netherlands, in Brussels.  In or after 1582, he followed the Archduke to Linz, in Austria, where he continued to serve him as court painter.  In 1592, Lucas moved to Frankfurt am Main, where his brother Marten and other members of his extended family had settled some years earlier.  In 1594, he was granted citizenship of Frankfurt.  There, he established a flourishing workshop in which other members of his family probably worked.  He also collaborated with his pupil Georg Flegel (1566-1638), a native of Moravia, whom he had probably met during his time in Linz.  Lucas remained active in Frankfurt despite being in poor health until his death in 1597.