Frans Francken the Younger Antwerp 1581 - 1642

In the collection of the family of the present owners for over a century.

This is the only listed version of this elaborate depiction of The Triumph of Bacchus by Frans Francken. The artist painted one other treatment of the subject, which exists in two versions: a painting listed by Härting as with the Nijstad Gallery, The Hague, in 1952; and a painting sold in these Rooms, 6 July 1983, lot 109 (see U. Härting, Frans Francken der Jüngere, Freren 1989, pp. 331-2, nos. 312 and 313 respectively, the former reproduced p. 331). Although the arrangement of the figures is broadly conceived along similar lines to the present work, these two versions are of squarer format, the narrative condensed into a tighter picture space in which the figures dominate the landscape setting. The artist has also shifted the temple which anchors the present composition in the centre background over to the left, almost directly in line with the figure of Bacchus, thereby drawing the viewer's eye more directly to the main protagonist.