Adam and Eve in the Garden of Paradise with the Creation of Eve beyond

The present painting is signed with the monogram 'MB' above a pair of spectacles, and the artist may therefore be identified as Mathys Bril the Younger (born in Antwerp or Breda 1548 or 1550 and died in Rome in 1583 or 1584). A drawing by Mathys Bril the Younger in the Albertina, Vienna, is monogrammed with an 'M' and spectacles ('bril' being Flemish for spectacles), and both Mathys Bril the Elder and Mathys the Younger's more famous brother, Paul Bril, used the same device. The present composition exists in several versions, perhaps the most famous of which is that in the Groeningemuseum, Bruges, for which the figures have been attributed to Jacob de Backer and the landscape and animals are thought to be by an anonymous hand.

In private conversation with the present owner, Professor Dr. Justus Müller-Hofstede, a noted authority on de Backer who has published on the artist, attributes the figures in the present painting fully to Jacob de Backer.

Other versions of composition, of lesser quality than the present painting, have been offered at Sotheby's, Monaco, 6 March 1984, lot 1202, and at Christie's, Amsterdam, 12 June 1990, lot 75.