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A classical landscape with Mercury and Argos oil on copper 12 3/8 x 193/4 in. (31.4 x 50.2 cm.) PROVENANCE Pierre-Fran‡ois-Joseph Robert (1763-1826), 'ex-l‚gislateur', Brussels; sale Jean Antoine Masson, Paris, 19 December 1808, lot 72, incorrectly catalogued as on panel, 'Mercure aprŠs s'ˆtre servi de la lyre d'Apollon pour endormir Argus, s'apprˆte … le tuer, et … d‚livrer la vache Io de sa surveillance. Le paysage o— cette scŠne se passe est bord‚, … gauche, par une longue c“te de rochers escarp‚s, au pied de laquelle se repose un troupeau de boeufs et de chŠvres. Le paysage est capital, et le beau dessin des figures prouve que l'auteur ‚tudia particuliŠrement cette partie de son art dans la grande ‚cole d'Italie.' (sale result unrecorded). C. Coxford; Sotheby's, London, 13 November 1963, lot 15 (sold to Agnew). with Agnew's, from whom acquired by the husband of the vendor, circa 1964. LITERATURE M. Roethlisberger, Bartholomeus Breenbergh, Berlin and New York, 1980, p. 55, no. 119, illustrated, dated to the early 1630s. NOTES Roethlisberger dates 'this delightful painting' to the early 1630s, placing it amongst a 'group of poetic, verdant landscapes with pastoral themes' and notes that the ruin in the centre is based on the apse of the Temple of Venus and Roma on the Forum ( loc. cit. ). That date places the painting in the period just after the artist's return from Rome in 1629, arguably the most creative of his career. Breenbergh drew extensively upon his experiences in Italy, for example assimilating the many drawings he had made of Rome and its environs, in the present case one of the aforementioned temple (Paris, Louvre, no. 22 557). In his ten-year stay in Italy, he had been in close contact with Paul Bril - indeed he himself wrote in 1653 that he 'spent seven years with Bril' and copied a number of his paintings - and Bril's influence is readily discernible in the present picture, as is that of Poelenburgh, with whose work Breenbergh's has often been confused. Typical of the artist's technique is his concentration on the portrayal of depth within the picture: light and shade are arranged in alternating planes in sharp juxtaposition, supported by the meandering river leading the eye to the distant ruins. The palette, too, is typical: a dark brown foreground, yellow-green centre and distant rose-hued buildings, blue mountains beneath a sky tinted blue, grey and violet. What is, however, unusual for the artist is the inclusion of numbers of trees, creating the 'poetic, verdant' quality that makes this one of the most jewel-like of all Breenbergh's works. This picture was formerly in the collection of Pierre-Fran‡ois-Joseph Robert, a notable figure in French revolutionary politics. Originally a professor of the Soci‚t‚ Philosophique, he was one of the original members of the Cordeliers, and was elected as a d‚put‚ for Paris in the Convention of 1792, where he voted for the execution of King Louis XVI. A friend of Danton, he was the editor of the Mercure National ; although he survived the fall of Danton's party in 1794, he was subsequently sent into exile as a regicide, living for the rest of his life in Brussels. His collection, which was sold in three sales in 1808 and 1810, was probably formed with the help of Joseph-Alexis Robert, a picture dealer who helped to advise on the hanging of the Grande Galerie of the Louvre.