Peasant Revelry - Circle Of Marten Van Cleve (1527 – 1577/81)

Oil on oak panel. Flemish school circa 1600, circle of Marten van Cleve.
Our composition depicts a peasant festival, probably the engagement of the young woman on the right, towards whom all eyes are turned. While in the compositions of Pieter Brueghel the Elder, dancing is performed to the sound of only the bagpipes, our peasants form a farandole with the harmony of a hurdy-gurdy (in the center) and a bagpipe (the player is seated with his back to the right on a barrel). These moments of jubilation are an opportunity to break with the monotony of laborious activities, making one forget their miserable condition, as evidenced by the tattered clothing and the detached soles of the shoes. Moreover, these festivals constitute the essential outlet that helps to bear the calamities that the Eighty Years' War (1568-1648) left behind in the Southern Netherlands. Excessive consumption of wine and beer and drunkenness are depicted in a crude manner; here a drunken man at a table vomits and there a woman swallows a full wineskin in the background. In our painting, the way in which the festivities are depicted is linked to the world of Marten van Cleve and, quite skillfully, our painter enhances his earthy palette with touches of bright colors on the protagonists' clothing.
Although Pieter Brueghel the Elder was the first to paint scenes of peasants dancing and drinking, he was not the originator of the genre, whose source is found in the art of printmaking under the influence of Sebald Beham (1500–1550) and other German engravers in the 1520s and 1530s. Pieter van Cleve, Pieter Balten and Pieter Brueghel the Younger would follow in his footsteps. Hans Bol, Jacob I Savery, David Vinckboons and many others would follow, the genre continuing until the end of the Golden Age.

A strong frame with an inverted profile in ebonized wood highlights our festive scene.
Dimensions: 51.5 x 68.5 cm – 67 x 84 cm with frame

Biography: Marten Van Cleve (Antwerp c. 1527 – Id 1581) belonged to a family of Antwerp painters. He was the son of Willem van Cleve the Elder and the brother of Hendrick III van Cleve and Willem van Cleve the Younger. Initially trained by his father, he is said, according to Karel van Mander, to have studied with the great Frans Floris, the leading Flemish history painter of the mid-16th century. Marten van Cleve did not travel to Italy, so his work was not influenced by Italian Mannerism. His favorite subjects are scenes from everyday life, weddings and peasant dances, fairs, scenes of fights or pillage. Since only five of his paintings are signed and documented, the attribution of his other works is difficult. Even some attributions by Dr. Klaus Ertz in his catalogue raisonné of Marten van Cleve are questioned.

Bibliography:
- Collective work, Fêtes et Kermesses au temps des Brueghel, catalogue of the exhibition at the Musée de Flandre de Cassel, Snoeck, 2019
- ERTZ, Klaus and NITZE-ERTZ C, Marten van Cleve (1524 – 1581) Kritischer Katalog der Gemälde, Lingen, 2010
- GIBSON, WS, Pieter Brueghel and the Art of Laughter, Berkeley, 2006
- STEWART, AG, Before Bruegel. Sebald Beham and the Origins of Peasant Festival Imagery, Aldershot, 2008
- HAAG, Sabine, collective work (OBERTHALER Elke, PENOT Sabine, SELLINK Manfred, SPRONK Ron), Bruegel The Master, Thames & Hudson, 2018
- DUCOS Blaise, Flemish Festivals and Celebrations, Brueghel, Rubens, Jordaens, exhibition catalogue at the Palais des Beaux-arts de Lille, RMN, 2025