Frans Francken the Younger and Hendrik van Steenwijck the Younger

With Galerie Bailly, Geneva (as Dirck van Delen and Frans Francken the Younger);

With Alan Jacobs Gallery, London (as Dirck van Delen and Frans Francken the Younger);

From whom acquired by the present collector, 1986.

U. Härting, Frans Francken II, Freren 1989, pp. 58, 163, 166, 357, cat. no. 396, reproduced fig. 143 (as Frans Francken II and Hendrik van Steenwijck II). 

Set within an opulent palace interior, the scene brims with anecdotal detail. Reflecting a seventeenth-century fascination with the human sensory experience, it also demonstrates the splendor of material culture. Francken crafted a sophisticated intellectual exercise wherein the viewer is encouraged to identify various symbolic references to the five senses: sight, sound, taste, smell, and touch. 

An array of contemporary seventeenth-century paintings decorate the walls and invite the viewer to appreciate the visual pleasures of art. For instance, the painting on the right wall is identifiable as Anthony van Dyck’s Saints John the Baptist and John the Evangelist (formerly in the Kaiser Friedrich Museum, Berlin, and destroyed during World War II). That painting, dateable to circa 1620, provides a terminus post quem for the present work.