(Mechelen before 1570 - before 1628 Brussels) and (Brussels circa 1560–1630)
The Judgement of Midas,
oil on canvas, 158.3 x 238.6 cm, framed

We are grateful to Sabine van Sprang, author of the monograph on van Alsloot (S. van Sprang, Denijs van Alsloot (vers 1568–1625/26). Peintre paysagiste au service de la cour des archiducs Albert et Isabelle, Turnhout 2014)  for her assistance in cataloguing this lot, after examining the present painting in the original.

The present work, depicting the Judgement of Midas is a vibrant example of the oeuvre of Denijs van Alsloot, with the staffage executed by his key collaborator Hendrick de Clerck (circa 1570–1629/30). Illustrating an episode from Ovid’s Metamorphoses (XI, 146–180), the present composition depicts King Midas, in the centre, along with Pan, Apollo and the mountain God Tmolus ranged around him. Behind them the characteristically Flemish serpentine foliage of the tree bisecting the picture space gives way to ancient ruins and Mount Olympus in the distance. According to Ovid, Tmolus judged Apollo to be the victor of a musical contest between the gods, but Midas intervened to say he preferred the flute of Pan. De Clerck paints Midas here gesturing to the cloven-hoofed Pan. As Ovid relates, Apollo punished Midas by transfiguring his ears into those of an ass.

The present canvas is noteworthy as being one of the only works in which Alsloot employs ruins inspired by the antique, the other being Tobias and the Angel (signed and dated 1610, oil on panel, 99.2 x 132.3 cm) conserved in the Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten (inv. no. 865). A drawing by Alsloot, dated 1611, with a similar compositional scheme to the present work is conserved the Metropolitan Museum, New York (inv. no. 1994.445). Another treatment by Alsloot and de Clerck of the same subject, also dated 1611, is conserved in the Westfälisches Landesmuseum für Kunst und Kultur, Münster.

Van Alsloot played a significant role in Flemish artistic life, appointed as court painter in 1599 to Archduke Albert and Archduchess Isabella who governed Flanders. His 1615 portrayal of the Ommegang in Brussels showing The Triumphal Entry of Archduchess Isabella (conserved in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London) is a major document of historical record (including the first depiction of the famous Manneken Pis statue). However, very little is known of van Alsloot’s life other than that he was the son of a tapestry weaver and as member of the Brussels Guild of Saint Luke between 1599 and 1625 only took on four apprentices. Hendrick de Clerck, who often painted the staffage in van Alsloot’s compositions, was one of the leading figure painters in Flanders, notably commissioned to paint several new altarpieces to replace those destroyed in the iconoclasm of 1566–67. Along with Marten de Vos, he was the major practitioner of the late mannerist tradition in the Low Countries before the transformational impact of Peter Paul Rubens’s return from Italy in 1608.