Peter de Kempeneer (Brussels c.1503-c.1580)

We are grateful to Dr. Nicole Dacos Crifò for reconfirming the attribution to Peter de Kempeneer, that she herself first proposed in 1987 (op. cit.). De Kempeneer was born in Brussels, but travelled widely, working in both Italy and Spain. Indeed most of what is known about him comes from Spanish sources. He came from a family of painters and tapestry designers, and his early training encompassed both art forms. He also spent a number of years in the early 1520s in the workshop of Bernard van Orley, and it is to this period that Dr. Dacos Crifò dates the present work. Clearly indebted to the work of van Orley (to whom it has also been attributed, see literature above), chronologically it comes after de Kempeneer's Job altarpiece of 1521 (Brussels, Musée Royaux des Beaux-Arts) and before the grisaille panels that he executed for the retable of the Last Judgement of 1525 (Antwerp, Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten).