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Lot Essay
After the fourth plate of Jacques Callot's Le Nouveau Testament (Lieure 1421), printed posthumously and incomplete in 1635. Brentel's bodycolours series after Callot's Small Passion was sold at Christie's Amsterdam, 10 November 1999, lot 477. This series of twelve drawings dated between 1636 and 1638, is of similar size, technique and colouring as the present lot, and has the same gold and black borders.
Brentel seems to have specialised in exquisite copies after prints and paintings after the other masters, which were highly prized in the courts of Northern Europe as luxury gifts. King Louis XVI owned two albums of copies after Rubens, Jordaens, Van Dyck, Dürer and others, which he had purchased from the heirs of the Prince de Conti, who had himself bought them in Strasburg for 6,000 livres.
Brentel seems to have specialised in exquisite copies after prints and paintings after the other masters, which were highly prized in the courts of Northern Europe as luxury gifts. King Louis XVI owned two albums of copies after Rubens, Jordaens, Van Dyck, Dürer and others, which he had purchased from the heirs of the Prince de Conti, who had himself bought them in Strasburg for 6,000 livres.