Joseph van Bredael Antwerp 1688 - 1739 Paris

Anonymous sale ("The Property of a Gentleman"), London, Sotheby's, 13 December 2001, lot 107.

The present painting in based on a work by Jan Brueghel the Elder known in two versions; one in the Clowes Collection, Indianapolis Museum of Art, and the other in Campione, Silvano Lodi Collection (see K. Ertz, Jan Brueghel der Ältere, Cologne 1979, cat. no. 101, p. 574, and cat. no. 257, pp. 600-01, the latter reproduced p. 187, fig. 215).  There is a further version by Jan Brueghel the Younger in Antwerp, Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Inv. no. 910 (see K. Ertz, Jan Brueghel der Jüngere, Freren 1984, pp. 218-219, cat. no. 35, reproduced).  The present work differs from these in the inclusion of the travellers in the lower right foreground.