拍品专文
Gillis Mostaert was born in Haarlem where his father Jan had settled as a portrait painter. Soon after his birth the Mostaert family moved to Amsterdam, where Gillis would become one of the most popular painters of his day. Cornelis de Bie, in his Gulden Cabinet, 1662, p.83, records how he specialized in compositions on a small scale, in which he was able to give Biblical subjects, both from the Old and the New Testament, a natural appearance, not seen before (S. Pierron, Les Mostaert, 1912, p.38). The winterkens (small winter landscapes), like the present lot, were particularly popular among collectors. Compare the picture of the same subject in the Martin von Wagner Museum, Wýrzburg, inv. no.I155 (cat. 1969, p.38).