(Antwerp circa 1555–after 1590)
Adam and Eve,
oil on panel, 65 x 48 cm, framed

We are grateful to Klaus Ertz for confirming the attribution. A written certificate (August 2016) accompanies the present painting.

Jacob de Backer is one of the least documented artists of the 16th-century Antwerp School. This is surprising, as the corpus of works attributed to him shows a highly accomplished artist, ingeniously combining late Mannerist elements with early Baroque influences (see Eckhard Leuschner, Defining De Backer: New Evidence on the Last Phase of Antwerp Mannerism Before Rubens, in Gazette des Beaux-Arts, CXXXVII, no. 1587, 2001).

Klaus Ertz writes: “The present Paradisiacal Landscape with the Fall of Man is known to me in the original. After thorough examination of the painting I am convinced that it is an original by the Flemish master Jacob de Backer (born circa 1540/50 in Antwerp, died before 1600 in France), painted in Italy before 1590. Its condition can be described as good. Practically nothing is known about de Backer’s life. In his ‘Schilder-Boek’, Karel van Mander praises him as one of the best colourists. He seems to have mostly been active in Antwerp. His figures were inspired by Frans Floris. The artist probably travelled to Italy around 1560, which would account for the fact that his work seems influenced by Giorgio Vasari und other Roman Mannerists: this is revealed by the mannered pose of the figures of Adam and Eve, the pronounced muscularity of the figures, and the positions of legs and arms. Jacob de Backer, who is known to have contributed to several paintings by Jan Brueghel the Elder, had a lasting influence on the figure style of Peter Paul Rubens“.

De Backer occupies a key moment in the development of Antwerp painting, between the generation of Frans Floris (1519/20–1570) and that of Rubens (1577–1640). According to van Mander, Jacob (or Jacques) de Backer was born in Antwerp, the son of a “very good painter” who emigrated to France and died there. Jacob was apprenticed to a painter and picture dealer of Italian origin but of Protestant faith known as Antonio da Palermo (d. 1588/9). Van Mander tells us that Jacob’s works “are very sought after and wanted everywhere and enrich the cabinets or galleries of art lovers in many places […]. In short, he is easily one of the best colourists that Antwerp has known: he had a fleshy manner of painting because he highlighted not just with white but with flesh colour, so that he earned eternal fame among painters” (see: K. van Mander, Schilder-Boeck, Haarlem, 1603/4, 231v–232r, ed. and trans. H. Miedema, The Lives ofthe Illustrious Netherlandish and German Painters, Doornspijk, 1994, I, pp. 185/86).