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Lot Essay
This is one of the group of works formerly attributed to the anonymous 'Maître aux Béguins' subsequently identified by Gregory Martin as the Antwerp artist Abraham Willemsens ('The Maître aux Béguins. A proposed identification', Apollo, February 1991, pp. 112ff.; and 'Abraham Willemsens (again)', idem, February 1993, pp. 97-101). Little is known about Willemsen's career: he is recorded as an apprentice to Gilliam Antonissens in the Antwerp Guild of Saint Luke in 1627/8, and himself took on two apprentices in 1651/2 and 1654/5. Elected dean of Antwerp's Oude Voetboogh guild, Willemsens died in Antwerp in 1672.
The twenty or so pictures known by Willemsens, which to judge by their often prestigious provenance were highly prized in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, are almost all outdoor rustic genre scenes. They include Peasants by a Drinking Trough (versions Paris, Louvre; and Glasgow, Hunterian Art Gallery), A Mother Nursing her Child during the Grape Harvest (Cleveland, Ohio, Museum of Art), A Peasant Family with a Ram (Princeton, Art Museum) and A Village Scene (Moscow, Pushkin Museum). The compositions of these works are for the most part similar, consisting, as in the present work, of figures grouped before a fragment of rustic architecture, with a glimpse of landscape beyond, particular emphasis being placed on the picturesque description of costume and still-life elements.
The twenty or so pictures known by Willemsens, which to judge by their often prestigious provenance were highly prized in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, are almost all outdoor rustic genre scenes. They include Peasants by a Drinking Trough (versions Paris, Louvre; and Glasgow, Hunterian Art Gallery), A Mother Nursing her Child during the Grape Harvest (Cleveland, Ohio, Museum of Art), A Peasant Family with a Ram (Princeton, Art Museum) and A Village Scene (Moscow, Pushkin Museum). The compositions of these works are for the most part similar, consisting, as in the present work, of figures grouped before a fragment of rustic architecture, with a glimpse of landscape beyond, particular emphasis being placed on the picturesque description of costume and still-life elements.