Allegory Of Summer – Flemish School, First Half Of The 17th Century

Oil on copper. Flemish School, early 17th century.
Our composition is a seasonal allegory of summer, depicting peasants busy at work in a charming rural landscape. In the foreground, at the edge of a wood, an old man, assisted by a young girl, is shearing a sheep, the wool threads of which the artist has rendered as they pass through the blades of shears. While other sheep anxiously await their turn, a small group of people prepare a meal for a well-deserved break. Behind them, the peasants are harvesting wheat, each ear represented by a fine blond line. While some cut it, others gather it into sheaves and load them onto a cart pulled by two oxen. The harvest will likely be taken later to the mill we glimpse in the background. Such is the division of labor in this summer countryside, whose verdant vegetation lends depth to this skillfully executed pastoral scene. This painting is a Flemish interpretation of the cycle of seasons painted by the Venetian Jacopo Bassano in the 16th century. His love of landscape painting stemmed from his long residence in the small village of Bassano del Grappa in northern Veneto, where the surrounding countryside provided him with ample inspiration. Deeply rooted in his local culture, Jacopo was nonetheless a humanist artist, inspired by the great masters he had admired during his apprenticeship in Venice. He thus created a synthesis, adapting the achievements of the Renaissance to themes drawn from rural life. While Bassano scattered sacred subjects throughout his Seasons, here our artist presents a work poised between landscape and genre scene, sure to delight collectors of fine art. Far from being a mere copyist, our painter is a virtuoso of the Antwerp landscape tradition, rivaling the talent of Italian artists. Devoid of moral or religious content, this composition offers delicate, luminous details that convey an impression of summer warmth, which one imagines would have delighted the eye of a connoisseur during the long winter months.

We have chosen to present this precious painting in a stained natural wood frame.
Dimensions: 21.5 x 30 cm – 36.5 x 46.5 cm with frame.

Biography: Jacopo Bassano (Bassano del Grappa c. 1510 – id. 13 Feb. 1512) began his apprenticeship in the Venetian workshop of Bonifacio de Pitati in the 1530s. Working primarily on church decorations, he drew inspiration from the Mannerism of Pordenone. Influenced by the engravings of Titian and Raimondi, he was also skilled at working from nature. From the 1560s onward, he moved away from Mannerism, focusing on the treatment of light contrasts. His sacred paintings, treated in a pastoral vein, were so successful that he founded a workshop with his son Francesco. In the 1570s, he depicted biblical scenes in small landscapes alongside genre scenes, such as the Summer that inspired our painter. A sign of the esteem in which he was held by his peers, Veronese portrays him alongside Titian and Tintoretto, playing music in The Wedding Feast at Cana, now in the Louvre.

Bibliography:
- Bassano and His Sons in French Museums (exh. cat., Paris, Louvre, June 18 – September 21, 1998), Paris, Réunion des musées nationaux, 1998.
- REARICK WR, “Jacopo Bassano’s Later Genre Paintings,” The Burlington Magazine, May 1968, Vol. 110, No. 782 (May 1968), pp. 241-249.
- TOM Nichols, “Jacopo Bassano, Regionalism, and Rural Painting”, Oxford Art Journal, 41.2 2018, pp. 147-170.
- THIERY, Yvonne, Les peintres Flamands de paysage au XVIIe siècle, Brussels, Lefebvre et Gillet, 1988.