1600–1700

On the first of these two paintings – which are pendants – we see fire and big clouds of smoke billowing out of the house in the middle, which is built of stone and wood. The fire has frightened a joyous company in the tavern in the foreground, interrupted a couple’s dance and scattered the drinkers who were sitting around a table. There is a sundial on the wall of the house on the right. On the second painting wildly flickering flames have forced the occupants of the houses to flee to safety half naked: on the right a farmer is trying to save his livestock from a stable. Other men are attempting to extinguish the fire with water and climbing a ladder; on the left we see a horse dragging a tub full of water.

It may be that these are scenes of some historical event, or that they have some moral import: fire as punishment for the sinners thronging the tavern. The tentative attribution of these paintings to Gillis van Valckenborch is based on the traditional record Valkenburg, with which the paintings were catalogued in the Landesbildergalerie in Graz, on the style, and also on the motif. The style of both pictures does in fact have considerable affinity with Gillis’ signed painting in Braunschweig, in particular in the presentation of the forms and in the brushwork, which interprets motifs and models of northern Mannerism, particularly evident in the second picture. Fires must have been one of Gillis’ favourite motifs, since the sources mention a large painting, the Burning of Troy, lost or destroyed today, which was also in Braunschweig until 1714.

Restored: 1983, Kemal Selmanović.
Provenance: Collection of the Counts of Attems in Graz (entail); LBG 52 and 96 (van Valkenburg: Nocturnal Fire, Dutch, 17C); Rogaška Slatina spa, 1903; Narodna galerija, Ljubljana, 1932, old Inv. No. 455 and 456 (17C paintings).
Exhibition: 1983, Ljubljana, Nos. 86 and 87.
Lit.: Zeri [& Rozman] 1983, pp. 157–158, Cat. Nos. 86 and 87, Fig. 87 and 88.