(Antwerp 1580–1662)
A hunting party in a forest near a stream,
oil on panel with the panel maker’s mark of François de Bout on the reverse, 71 x 93 cm, framed

Provenance:
Count Edouard de Briey (according to an old label on reverse)

The present picture is an autograph repetition by Adriaen van Stalbemt, the other is conserved in the Staatliches Museum, Schwerin (inv. no G 16). Klaus Ertz dates van Stalbemt’s invention of this composition to circa 1615, and notes van Stalbemt’s development of characteristic elements from Jan Brueghel the Elder. Particularly remarkable to Ertz are the dark/light contrasts and the fantastic and surrealist lighting effects modelled ‘through the filigree silhouettes of the trees’ (see K. Ertz, C. Nitze-Ertz, Adriaen van Stalbemt, 1580-1662: kritischer Katalog der Gemälde, Zeichnungen, und Druckgraphik, Lingen 2018, pp. 288-289). This comparison between van Stalbemt and the great Jan Brueghel I is typical of a master noted for his meticulous brush work and refined handling of figures. In the present composition, the gay courtly Northern European hunting costumes are contrasted with the gypsy begging from the mounted lady beneath a parasol.

Van Stalbemt spent his childhood in Middelburg, his protestant parents having fled there after the fall of Antwerp in 1585. Returning to his home city in 1609, he became dean of the Guild of Saint Luke and a keen member of the Violeren, an Antwerp’s chamber of Rhetoric, which may inform the erudite mythological and high contemporary cultural references of his works. A noted figure painter, in addition to his facility in rendering Brueghelian landscapes, he was employed to paint staffage in other painters’ compositions. His versatility and mastery of lighting effects is evidenced by the fact that several paintings once attributed to Jan Brueghel the Elder, and even Adam Elsheimer, are now given to van Stalbemt.