Adriaen van Stalbemt (Antwerp 1580-1662)

After the fall of Antwerp in 1585, the Protestant Stalbemt family moved to Middelburg. Adriaen van Stalbemt later returned to Antwerp, becoming a master in the St. Luke's Guild around 1609. He is documented as having spent almost a year in England (1633-34), where he painted two views of Greenwich with King Charles I and Queen Henrietta Maria (still in the Royal Collection). His eclectic style reveals the influences of Jan Breughel I, Hendrick van Balen, Paul Bril and Adam Elsheimer, to whom a group of Stalbemt's pictures had previously been given (see K. Andrews, 'A Pseudo-Elsheimer Group: Adriaen van Stalbemt as Figure painter', in: The Burlington Magazine, CXV, 1973, pp. 301-6).

This beautifully preserved painting exhibits Stalbemt's characteristically meticulous brush technique and the extent of the influence by Jan Breughel I. A copper plate with the same measurements, depicting An Allegory of Winter sold with Christie's, Amsterdam, 13 November 1990, lot 207, may well have been a pendant to the present composition. A nearly identical pair of pictures by Adriaen van Stalbemt, larger and on panel, is recorded to have been with De Jonckheere in the past.