The iconography of this imposing work is similar to that of other Flemish family portraits of the period: the small dog at the woman's feet alludes to marital fidelity, as do the vines that wrap around the architectural columns -- they illustrate the motto 'Amicitia etiam post mortem durans' ('Friendship that lasts even unto Death') -- and the parrot, a traditional attribute of wedlock associated since the 17th century with the Virgin Mary. The same iconography can be found in Jacob Jordaens' Self-Portrait with Family (c.1621-22) in the Prado, Madrid.

The picture's date situates it in the same period as the second of the artist's two self-portraits with family, a comparable work also of 1634 (Hermitage, St. Petersburg). No other version of this composition is known.

Katlijne van der Stighelen published the present lot as a lost work by de Vos in her recent study of the artist, but upon examining a transparency of the recently rediscovered painting concluded that while its composition must be by the master, the picture was executed by another hand, probably in de Vos' workshop.