Lot Essay
The present work is similar in composition to the picture sold in these Rooms, 13 December 1991, lot 156, as School of Antwerp, circa 1660. The architecture, sculpture, metalwork and objects scattered on the floor are almost identical in the two pictures, whereas the paintings are different and the female figure in the present work is standing rather than seated and the putto is holding the mirror up to her.
The vista to the right of the present work can be identified as the city of Antwerp on the banks of the Schelde, and in this respect, the picture can be compared with another cabinet picture in the John G. Johnson Collection, Philadelphia (see K. Ertz, Jan Breughel the Younger, Lingen, 1984, I, pp. 348-9, no. 183).
In the present work, the pictures and metalwork can be attributed to Jan van Kessel, the female figure and putto to Pieter van Avont, and the landscape and the sculpture to at least one other hand. In the note to the picture sold in these Rooms in 1991, it was suggested that the group of cabinet scenes were the result of a collaboration between several Antwerp artists. In that picture, the metalwork and objects, and possibly the landscape, but not the paintings, were executed by Jan van Kessel and the sculpture and figures by Abraham Willemsens. In the Philadelphia picture, (loc. cit.), the most dominant hand is that of Jan Breughel II, and the figures have in the past been ascribed to Hendrick van Balen, though Ertz rejects this. Another picture, signed and dated 1659, in a private collection in Antwerp, has been attributed to Jan van Kessel in full (see W. Bernt, The Netherlandish Painters of the Seventeenth Century, Munich, 1970, II, fig. 615).
The group of pictures discussed all derive from the prototypes An Allegory of Sight and Smell by Jan Breughel I and Hendrick van Balen and An Allegory of Sight by Jan Breughel I and Sir Peter Paul Rubens, both in the Prado, Madrid (see M. Diáz Padrón, Museo del Prado, Escuela Flamenca, Madrid, 1975, I, p. 45, no. 1403 and p. 28, no. 1394 respectively). Müller Hofstede has demonstrated that the female figure looking into a mirror held by the putto is Juno personifying Optics (see Z.Z. Filipczak, Picturing Art in Antwerp 1550-1700, Princeton, 1987, p. 71).
The vista to the right of the present work can be identified as the city of Antwerp on the banks of the Schelde, and in this respect, the picture can be compared with another cabinet picture in the John G. Johnson Collection, Philadelphia (see K. Ertz, Jan Breughel the Younger, Lingen, 1984, I, pp. 348-9, no. 183).
In the present work, the pictures and metalwork can be attributed to Jan van Kessel, the female figure and putto to Pieter van Avont, and the landscape and the sculpture to at least one other hand. In the note to the picture sold in these Rooms in 1991, it was suggested that the group of cabinet scenes were the result of a collaboration between several Antwerp artists. In that picture, the metalwork and objects, and possibly the landscape, but not the paintings, were executed by Jan van Kessel and the sculpture and figures by Abraham Willemsens. In the Philadelphia picture, (loc. cit.), the most dominant hand is that of Jan Breughel II, and the figures have in the past been ascribed to Hendrick van Balen, though Ertz rejects this. Another picture, signed and dated 1659, in a private collection in Antwerp, has been attributed to Jan van Kessel in full (see W. Bernt, The Netherlandish Painters of the Seventeenth Century, Munich, 1970, II, fig. 615).
The group of pictures discussed all derive from the prototypes An Allegory of Sight and Smell by Jan Breughel I and Hendrick van Balen and An Allegory of Sight by Jan Breughel I and Sir Peter Paul Rubens, both in the Prado, Madrid (see M. Diáz Padrón, Museo del Prado, Escuela Flamenca, Madrid, 1975, I, p. 45, no. 1403 and p. 28, no. 1394 respectively). Müller Hofstede has demonstrated that the female figure looking into a mirror held by the putto is Juno personifying Optics (see Z.Z. Filipczak, Picturing Art in Antwerp 1550-1700, Princeton, 1987, p. 71).