Dutch School, possibly Utrecht, circa 1590

This painting was formerly attributed to Cornelis Cornelisz. van Haarlem (1562-1638). The composition is known in another version of slightly smaller size (127.7 by 174.7 cm.), formerly in the collection of Rudolf and Margot Wittkower and sold New York, Christie's, 12 January 1996, lot 22 (as 'Circle of Bartholomaus Spranger' for $65,000), and now in an American private collection. More recently, both Anne Lowenthal and Professor Marcel Roethlisberger have proposed an attribution for the ex-Wittkower painting to the young Abraham Bloemaert (see M. Roethlisberger, "Abraham Bloemaert: recent additions to his paintings", in Artibus et Historiae, no. 41, Vienna/ Krakow 2000, pp. 154-5, 169, n. 12, reproduced in colour pp. 152-3, plates 1 and 2). Roethlisberger proposes an early date for the design, that is before 1590, which would make it Bloemaert's earliest known work. No related engravings or drawings of this subject have survived, but the influence of the works of Spranger and Cornelis van Haarlem around 1590 are very evident in the bold and inventive design, and a probable source in Utrecht in the early 1590s highly plausible.