A banquet with an elegant company

By the same hand as the present sheet, but less fresh and lacking the touches of watercolour, is a depiction of two couples at a picnic (most recently at Sotheby’s, Amsterdam, 9 November 1999, lot 41, as by Van Breen). While these drawings have been variously given to David Vinckboons, the Dutchman Adam van Breen and de Caullery, it is clearly the attribution to the latter that must be preferred, as argued by Dieter Beaujean (op. cit.). The artist’s paintings show similarly slim and elegant figures – dressed in a Flemish, not a Dutch manner – enjoying themselves in luxury interiors or lush parks.