The Adoration of the Shepherds in a winter landscape,
oil on panel, on the reverse the mark of the panel maker Michiel Vriendt (in use between 1615 and 1638), 41.5 x 54.5 cm, framed

There are several versions of the present composition, which clearly was popular among seventeenth-century patrons. Whilst some of them are painted on copper, two others, as is the case with the present work, are painted on panel. Scholars have yet to come to a conclusion about the origins of the composition, as well as a convincing attribution.

In the past, some examples have been attributed to Cornelis de Baellieur (1607–1671) and some to Ambrosius Francken the Younger (1581–1642). The mark of the panel maker Michiel Vriendt on the back of the panel allows for a relatively precise dating to 1615–38. A comparable version was sold in 2006 in France (sale, Versailles Encheres, Versailles, 22 January 2006, lot 45, sold for

Given the extent of workshop collaboration in seventeenth-century Antwerp and the re-employment of popular compositions, it is hardly surprising that a quintessentially Flemish scene such as the present one was re-imagined by several of the leading workshops of the city. Indeed, some figures would even suggest the involvement of Jan Brueghel the Younger.

The subjects most frequently treated by European painters in the late Renaissance and early Baroque were taken from the spheres of religion and classical antiquity. The buildings shown in such paintings would have been magnificent edifices: distinctive palaces and town or city halls. Crofts and thatched houses would not have been typically depicted, for such dwellings would call to mind the arduous life in the countryside. However, in the Netherlands, and particularly in Flanders, the setting of such paintings differed in this respect. Flemish artists incorporated their everyday milieu into their pictures, the peasants, the agricultural workers, their dwellings, their villages. Like in the present painting, these works were often done in great detail, requiring the spectator to spend time engaging with each part of the composition and its meanings. The present Adoration shows the shepherds paying homage to the new-born Christ in a Flanders village, brilliantly combining a key biblical episode with the contemporary reality of a Flemish winter.

From the sixteenth until as late as the nineteenth century, Northern regions witnessed what was referred to as the Little Ice Age. During this period, the regions’ inhabitants experienced a prolonged period of increased ice and snow that led to severe disruptions to food production, causing famines and death. Winter played an important role for Flemish contemporary life, as is demonstrated by the popularity of winter scenes in Netherlandish and particularly Flemish paintings. Indeed, the present painting, when taking this context into account, is much more than a representation of the biblical topic. For example, the elderly figure on a mule, entering the scene from the left and accompanied by some villagers, can be interpreted as a personification of winter, closely resembling Hendrick Goltzius’ well-known engraving of Hyems. Thus, the present painting cannot exclusively be seen as a religious work, rather in a broader sense as an allegory of winter.

The stage scene for the adoration is essentially in itself a classically Flemish motif. Indeed, the thatched roof and the humble structure of the stable, has featured prominently in many of the Brueghel family’s depictions of adorations. Furthermore, some of these features derive ultimately from the depiction of the theme in the central panel of Hieronymus Bosch’s Bronchorst Bosschuyse-Triptych of 1495–99 in the Prado, Madrid, that was probably known in Flanders through later copies.