School of Antwerp, c. 1510-1520

Situated on an aanwerp, a small peninsula easily accessible to trading routes, the city of Antwerp witnessed an expansion of artistic activity beginning in the early sixteenth century when it became the western hub of the international spice trade. Antwerp attracted the leading talent in all major fields of the visual arts, and the high degree of international exchange facilitated the transmission of artistic developments as well as of commercial products. In order to practice any craft in the city, artists were required to register as a member of the Guild of St. Luke, and its detailed membership records date from its inception in 1453. Important figures in Antwerp during this period included Quinten Massys, whose work in landscape, portraiture and genre scenes touched on all three areas of specialty in Antwerp painting; Pieter Brueghel, Jan Mandijn and Mieter Huys, whose surrealist compositions recall Hieronymus Bosch; and Pieter Coecke van Aelst and Frans Floris, whose mythological and allegorical subjects were perhaps the most influenced by contemporary advances in Italy.

The traditional attribution of this pair of works to Bartholomäus Bruyn has been rejected, and an alternative attribution to the Master of Frankfurt has been considered, but not embraced. The author of this lot, therefore, remains for the present an anonymous member of the Antwerp school.