Circle of Gillis Mostaert the Elder

Anonymous sale ("The Property of a Lady"), London, Phillips, 4 July 1995, lot 37 (as Attributed to Gillis Mostaert the Elder, Lot and his daughters fleeing the destruction of Troy);

Where acquired by the present collector.

Executed by a Flemish painter working in the late sixteenth or early seventeenth century, this painting depicts a trio of figures escaping from a burning city.¹ The North Netherlandish artist Gillis Mostaert specialized in rendering such conflagrations, a genre of painting called brandekens, or little fires. The appearance of such fiery landscapes in the inventories of prominent Antwerp collectors and in depictions of picture galleries (often by members of the Francken family) attests to the popularity of the pictorial genre.²

¹ They have previously been identified as Lot and his two daughters fleeing Sodom, but might also be Aeneas, Anchises, and Ascanius fleeing Troy.

² See, for instance, Cabinet of an amateur (Antwerp, Musées royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, inv. no. 6853) and Cabinet of an amateur (Antwerp, Musées royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, inv. no. 2628).