(Cambrai before 1555–1622 Antwerp)
A wedding banquet,
with the mark of the copper plate maker Pieter Stas and date 1605 on the reverse,
oil on copper, 48.5 x 66 cm, framed

Provenance:
Collection Erich Müller-Stinnes, Hamburg;
by descent to Erika Harre (1917–1983), Hamburg;
bequest to the Städtische Kunsthalle, Mannheim (inv. no. M2292), 1984;
deaccessioned shortly after;
Private collection, Belgium since 1990

The present gay and varied scene of a wedding feast in a sumptuous courtly interior is typical of the oeuvre of Louis de Caullery. A pupil of mannerist landscape painter Joos de Momper, de Caullery also borrowed the elongated grace of the School of Fontainebleu and the architectural inventiveness of Paul Vredeman de Vries. Here the rich handling of the glazed windows and gilded candelabras are redolent of the single-point perspective church and palace interiors of Vredeman de Vries.

De Caullery regularly treated the theme of the five senses, and here the pictures hanging on the wall, the embracing of the diners, the array of dishes and the group of musicians are all evocative. Common to such Flemish banqueting scenes, whether of high or low society, was a moralising sub-text, and indeed the picture on the far right appears to show the Holy Family’s Flight into Egypt. When coupled with the many wine vessels apparent in the feasting below, this perhaps draws deliberate comparisons with the Miracle of the Marriage of Cana.