Attributed to Jacob Andreas Beschey

Monsieur de Vieux Viller;

His sale, Paris, Le Brun, 17 February 1788, lot 189;

Where acquired by Strubing;

Private collection, France;

Thence by descent;

Rowell collection, France;

From whom acquired by the present owner.

This charming domestic interior was probably painted by the eighteenth-century Antwerp painter Jacob Andreas Beschey, whose Holy Family is visible hanging in the background. Beschey repeated that composition at least twice: a small-scale signed version and a trompe l'oeil depiction, in which the image appears to have been painted on a piece of canvas pinned to a wooden board.¹

¹ The former, 31.8 by 24.4 cm., London, Sotheby's, 15 April 1999, lot 337; the latter, 90.4 by 72.1 cm., offered, Vienna, Dorotheum, 11 June 2012, lot 305.