The Village Advocate, this is the title of the work put up for auction by Drouot in France for between 600,000 and 800,000 euros. It is a scene painted in several dozen versions. The painting was found by chance in Paris. It is unsigned, but several French experts have recognized and authenticated it as the only personal work of Pieter Brueghel the Younger. A Flemish painter who lived at the turn of the 16th and 17th century, son of another great painter Pieter Brueghel the Elder who died when he was 5 years old.
The canvas was abandoned and dusty
A French family discovered by chance that they had been in possession of this canvas for over a century by the famous Flemish painter Brueghel the Younger born in Brussels in 1564. The large painting (one meter by two meters) was forgotten behind a door of the house . The owners considered it worthless. Instead, it was an auction commissioner who understood that it was a 1600s masterpiece who, during an inventory ordered by the heirs of the house, found it yellowed and dusty, hanging carelessly in the living room, as reported by the French weekly Le Point.
Now the canvas is being auctioned off
Now the canvas is being auctioned by Drouot for between 600,000 and 800,000 euros. The panel depicts one of the most popular compositions by Pieter Brueghel the Younger. The painted subject has recently been identified as the French Procurator, by virtue of a 1627 inventory of the collection of Antoinette Wiael, in which this painting by the young Brueghel is described. The narration sees the lawyer sitting behind his desk surrounded by assistants and clerks, while across the room we observe the peasants crowding together expressing their tempers and fears. It therefore becomes apparent that the painting is a satire on the venality of the legal profession and the way lawyers distort the law.
Source-tg24.sky.it