Jean-Baptiste Saive the Younger Malines 1597-after 1641

Private Collection, Scotland

Jean-Baptiste Saive the Younger was born in Malines in 1597. Although little is known about his early career, it is most likely that he studied in the workshop of his father Jean-Baptiste Saive the Elder. His own paintings retain a strong stylitic affinity with those of his father, whose work is exemplified by a series of six canvases representing the Months of the year painted in 1590-91 for the Archduke Ernst of Austria. Three of these are now in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna (inv. nos. 1626, 2204, 7628) and two more were sold London, Sotheby's, 3 July, 1997 lots 17 and 18.

While these works by the Elder show a clear influence of Lucas van Valckenborch, the oeuvre of his son remains less defined, and the works given to him appear to have more stylistic affinities with the work of Joachim Beuckelaer. Another large signed market scene by the same hand as and of similar dimensions to the present picture was sold London, Christie's, 7 July 2000, lot 36 for £300,000, with an attribution to Jean-Baptiste Saive the Younger, although it had been thought, prior to cleaning, to be the work of his father and exhibited as such (Ghent, Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Joachim Beuckelaer, 1986-1987, no. 27). This reattribution was made on basis of comparison with a picture in the Musée des Beaux Arts, Rheims,  which Wabbes and de Maere (Dictionary of 17th century Flemish paintings, Brussels 1994, p. 1033) give to Saive the younger. As Fred G. Meijer has recently observed it seems likely that father and son Saive ran a fairly large workshop that produced a number of large scale kitchens and markets in response to popular demand, and that the seperation of their distinct artistic personalities remains problematic.

We are grateful to Fred G. Meijer from the Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie for confirming the attribution on the basis of a transparency.