Studio of Jan Brueghel the Younger Antwerp 1601 - 1678

The subject is that of the Children of Saturn, also called an Allegory on the Misery in the World (miseria mondana). It shows Saturn (or Cronus in Greek mythology) in a wagon made of skeletons and bones drawn by dragons. Mother Earth prophesied that one of Cronus'offspring would usurp him and so, to prevent this happening, he ate them. Eventually he was overthrown by Zeus who managed to stay alive by fooling Cronus. The dying, sick, poor and cripple people and beggars alike, depicted here in the foreground, are the so-called children of Saturn.

A comparable signed representation of the same subject by Jan Brueghel the Younger was sold London, Christie's, 1 December 1978, lot 78, datable to the late 1640s and of similar size but on panel (see K. Ertz, Jan Breughel der Jüngere (1601-1678), Freren 1984, pp. 50, 58 and 392-3, cat. no. 231, reproduced).