Lot Essay
This picture is comparable to two versions by Jan Brueghel II, one formerly in the Aardenne Collection in Dordrecht and another in the Szepmvesti Museum, Budapest, no. 612 (K. Ertz, Jan Brueghel the Younger, I, Freren, 1984, nos. 287 & 288 [illustration wrongly numbered 289], pps. 450-452). Both compositions were inspired by his father's still lifes of tazze and baskets of flowers and were probably executed before his trip to Italy in 1620. Other copies by unknown Brueghel followers exist in the Billedgalleri, Bergen (no. BB 670) and in the H. Dietel Collection, The Hague (op. cit., p. 451).