Frans Francken the Younger Antwerp 1581 - 1642

Katz, by whom sold, Amsterdam, Mak van Waay, 16 October 1951, lot 16, for 740 florins to Brandt;
Willem Russell, Amsterdam, 1970.

Amsterdam, Amsterdams Historisch Museum, 17e-eeuwse schilderijen uit de verzameling Willem Russell, 20 June - 13 September 1970, no. 32.

S.H. Levie, 17e-eeuwse schilderijen uit de verzameling Willem Russell, exhibition catalogue, Amsterdam, Amsterdams Historisch Museum, 20 June - 13 September 1970, p. 44, cat. no. 32, reproduced p. 45.

"The following condition report has been provided by Sarah Walden, an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. This painting is on a fine oak panel with two joints. There are also two fairly short old cracks, one at centre left about six inches long, which has a stable old baton behind to support it, and one near the base running in a similar distance also from the left. The back was primed behind, probably originally, to secure the stability of the wood, although the priming has long flaked. The two joints were ostensibly secured by backing strips in careful sections, however these were inexplicably and misguidedly against the grain of the original panel, and are now curling up while the joints remain stable. This seems to have been done three or four decades ago, presumably the same moment as the restoration. The centre of the base edge of the painting has some flaking, where there are fillings and a wide stretch of quite darkened retouching all along the foreground floor. There are a certain number of small darkened retouchings on the light wall near the top edge, and bands of retouching along the joints. Other small touches can be seen in the lighter areas of certain of the paintings: for instance in the sky of the possible de Momper landscape in the foreground, and occasionally in some other skies, with some touches also in the rocky background of the Lot and his daughters at centre left and in the possible Holbein portrait above. However the figures and many of the fine details are beautifully preserved and unworn, as is the fabulous scene of iconoclasm on the right. This report was not done under laboratory conditions."
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

Affixed to the prepared reverse of the panel are labels identifying the paintings depicted. In a 17th-century hand: Moulen; andrea del sarto/ van harlem(?); Teniers; fluwelen brueghel; fluwelen brueghel/ abraham willaerts; holb; fluweelen bruegel; momberts; franck/ Herrick/ van Balen. In an 18th-century hand: Breughell/ Franck; Breughell/Franck; Andrea del Sarto/ Franck; Breughell/ Franck; Breughel/ Franck; Hellikh Breughel; Abraham Willaerts/ Franck; Portrai/ Holbein/ Frank; Breughel Franck; Momperts/ Franck; Hendrick Van Balen/ Franck.

The paintings depicted include six landscapes in the manner of Jan Brueghel, flanking a Virgin and Child with Saint Anne and Saint John, derived from the figure group on the lower left corner of Frans Francken's own Allegory of the Lamb of God and the Holy Kinship, now in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. That picture is dated 1616, which provides a likely terminus post quem for the present work. The source does not appear to be Andrea del Sarto, as the collectors' incriptions on the reverse imply. To the right are three roundels reminiscent of Pieter Brueghel the Elder or his eponymous son, and below them a marine by Adam Willaerts. On top of the credenza rests a portrait identified by the old labels as by Hans Holbein. Resting against it is a Lot and his Daughters which looks like a Frans Francken, but which does not correspond to a known work. Resting against the table is a landscape probably by Joos de Momper.

Frans Francken the Younger painted a number of pictures of gallery interiors. Two of these are particularly close to the present work, and include nearly all of the pictures and sculpture depicted in it, together with the scene of iconoclasm with figures with donkey's heads destroying sculpture, books etc.¹ Of these the closest is a picture belonging to the Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, and now at Schloß Bayreuth (signed, on panel, 54 by 63 cm.). In another, in Rome, Palazzo Barberini (signed, on copper, 52.5 by 74 cm.), the arrangement of sculpture on the table is different, and the monkey and landscape resting on the floor are absent. A version by Frans Francken III, in a Belgian private collection, also includes many of the same elements (signed and dated 1636, on copper).²

1.  See U. Härting, Frans Francken der Jüngere, Freren 1989, p. 371, nos. 450 and 451, reproduced.
2.  Idem, reproduced in colour on p.169, plate 37.