拍品專文
Described by Werche as a 'qualitätvollen Arbeit' (work of quality), this richly detailed copper belongs to the best group of refined cabinet pictures for which the artist is most admired. Werche proposes a date of circa 1621, pointing to the close similarity between the centrally placed female gesturing upwards and the figure painted as the personification of Air, in the picture of 1621 in the Louvre (inv. 1093). Van Balen collaborated frequently throughout his career with his friend Jan Brueghel the Elder and Klaus Ertz endorses his participation in this work, which may, as Werche suggests, be confined to the still-life elements in the foreground.