Balen, Jan van (attr.)

Description:

Antwerpen 1611 - 1654
41 x 44 cm
The Rest on the Flight into Egypt. The Holy Family accompanied by angels. Oil/panel.
Ferdinand III Mülhens Collection, Cologne.
Jan van Balen, the son of Hendrick I van Balen and teacher of his brothers Gaspard and Hendrick the Younger, worked, among others, also with Jan Breughel the Younger. Some of the compositions are taken from the collaboration of his father Hendrick the Elder with Jan Breughel the Elder. The ancillary hand in the completion of paintings, sometimes the landscape background, sometimes the floral staffage in the "Garland Paintings", i.e. the collaboration of painters from different workshops, was a typical mode of practice in 17th century Antwerp, - the borrowing of compositional ideas was not yet subject to the question of "intellectual property", especially since the dissemination of popular paintings via printmaking was immense. Workshops such as that of P. P. Rubens even employed their own engravers in order to better disseminate their works. Jan van Balen was active in Antwerp throughout his lifetime and was linked here to the Lucas Guild, but in 1639 he traveled to Italy and also there worked with his Antwerp colleagues. With regard to the compositional style of our "Rest on the Flight", the proximity to works by Pieter van Avont (becomes a citizen of Antwerp in 1631) should be mentioned, especially his flying angels accompanying the Holy Family (cf. Madonna with Child and Angels in a Forest Landscape at Vienna).