Van de Venne’s Album
At some time in the mid-eighteenth Century, John, the first Earl Spencer spent a hundred guineas on an album of a hundred and two paintings which he supposed to be the work of Peter Bruegel. Had he examined the album’s first folio closely, he might have noticed it was dated 1626, some fifty-seven years after Bruegel’s death. On the final folio, moreover, is an hour-glass motif with a signature traced in gold on its base which reads AV Venne fe. In 1978, the album was acquired by the British Museum, who, ten years later, published a book reproducing all of the album’s paintings. This volume (inelegantly titled Adriaen van de Venne’s Album in the Department of Prints and Drawings in the British Museum) has been my source for the images that follow. The information quoted and paraphrased here is likewise drawn from Martin Royalton-Kisch’s long and detailed introduction to this work.
