Nicolaes Jonghelinck was a merchant banker and art collector in Antwerp. He is best known for his collection of paintings by Pieter Bruegel the Elder and Frans Floris. His brother was the sculptor Jacques Jonghelinck. In the archives of Antwerp, a writ of guarantee by Jonghelinck, dated 15 February 1566 and declaring to be worth 16.000 guilders, for his friend Daniel de Bruyne lists "sixteen paintings by Bruegel, among them the Tower of Babel, a painting with the title Christ carrying the Cross, the twelve Months of the Year, and all the others whichever they might be". Jonghelinck probably commissioned these paintings though that has not been recorded, for his fortified country house outside of Antwerp that was designed by his brother Jacques in 1547 and sold in 1554 to Nicolaes. It can still be seen on a map dated 1582 though it was destroyed during the Fall of Antwerp.
Though it is known that Jonghelinck owned 16 paintings by Bruegel at the time of his death, the specific list is unknown and for many years art historians assumed that this cycle of paintings included either four panels for the four seasons or twelve panels for all twelve months. Now it is assumed they represent six bi-monthly pairs, with one missing. They are assumed to be a continuation of an older tradition to make cyclical images of the Labours of the Months, but they were hung by Jonghelinck in his chateau and therefore may simply have been ordered as wall decorations. The surviving Months of the Year cycle are:
Bruegel's Tower of Babel is one of several paintings in the possession of Jonghelinck that came into the collection of the City of Antwerp and later found their way into the Austrian Imperial collection of Vienna through Archduke Leopold Wilhelm of Austria. A smaller version by Breugel's hand is in Rotterdam, dated to the same period, which indicates the popularity of the subject in Jonghelinck's day.
wrote an art-historical book entitled The Mill and the Cross, which served as the basis for the 2011 film The Mill and the Cross, directed by Lech Majewski. The film sets into their historical context in sixteenth-century Flanders the characters in the painting and the circumstances of the painting's creation. The films stars Rutger Hauer as Bruegel and Michael York as his patron Jonghelinck.
Another artist in the collection of Jonghelinck was Frans Floris, who made ten panels of the Labours of Hercules. Floris also made seven compositions on the liberal arts for Jonghelinck, which were later exported to Genua.
Provenance
Nicolaas Jonghelinck is listed as the first owner in 1566 for several of the paintings that have survived in the Austrian Imperial collection and are still in the Kunsthistorisches Museum today. For example, the record for The Gloomy Day, or Düsterer Tag , shows in their provenance record Nicolaas Jongelinck; 1594 Geschenk der Stadt Antwerpen an Erzherzog Ernst; 1595 Nachlass Erzherzog Ernst; Rudolf II.; Slg. Leopold Wilhelm.
