An Allegory of Flora with three erotes in a garden, oil on panel, 39.8 x 56.3 cm, framed

Provenance:
Acquired by John II, Prince of Liechtenstein (1840–1929);
collection of the Princes of Liechtenstein, Vienna/Vaduz.

Literature:
A. von Wurzbach, Niederländisches Künstlerlexikon, vol. II, Vienna/Leipzig 1910, p. 900;
A. Kronfeld, Führer durch die Fürstlich Liechtensteinische Gemäldegalerie in Wien, Vienna 1931, p. 186, no. 924;
G. Glück, “Rubens, van Dyck und ihr Kreis”, in: Gesammelte Aufsätze, vol. I, Vienna 1933, p. 241;
E. Greindl, in: Thieme-Becker, Allgemeines Lexikon der Bildenden Künstler, vol. 36, Leipzig 1940, p. 261.

The present present painting is considered a charateristic work by Wouters and displays the artist´s pictoral quality which was already highly acclaimed during his lifetime: his talent of translating the monumental Baroque style of his master Rubens into the small format of cabinet pictures. In the 1630s, Wouters, who after his time in Rubens’ workshop became a master of the Guild of Saint Luke in Antwerp in 1635, worked for the courts in Vienna and London. Later on he was appointed court painter to Archduke William Leopold, the governor in Brussels.