(Antwerp 1581–1642) and Workshop
An Allegory of Fire and Air,
oil on panel, 53.1 x 74.5 cm, framed

Provenance:
sale, Sotheby’s, Monaco, 2 December 1989, lot 314;
sale, Leclere, Paris, 20 September 2016, lot 62;
where acquired by the present owner

Ursula Härting confirmed the attribution of the present painting to Frans Francken II and his workshop. A written certificate (February 2019) is available.

Härting writes in her certificate: ‘This allegorical scene, known to me in the original and comprising two female personifications of Fire and Air as well as the motif of an arch in the style of antiquity, was painted by the famous Antwerp small-figure painter Frans Francken II, whereas the Brueghelesque foreground, containing birds and militaria, was executed by Francken’s studio. The two personifications are seated in front of a double archway. The personification of Air holds an armillary sphere in her raised hand – an instrument serving astronomers to measure the sky, among other things; a voluminous red cloth forms the backdrop of the elongated, reclining nude, enhancing the figure’s light-coloured complexion. The female figure embodying Fire, identified by her red-glowing face, is seated somewhat below her counterpart, her hands held over a blazing fire that neither scorches the amphibians in it nor her arms. If the menagerie of various birds can be assigned to Air, the still life in the right foreground shows attributes of Fire, including a canon, weapons, and a suit of armour. They were forged by Vulcan, the god of fire and the art of smithery. Accompanying the two allegorical female figures, mythological episodes are discernable in the archways that can be attributed to them: On the left, Vulcan surprises Venus, the goddess of love, and Mars, the god of war; on the left there is a view of Vulcan’s forge. These figural scenes and the two personifications of the elements betray the characteristic hand of Frans Francken II from his mature period in the 1630s. The loose, skillful application of paint suggests that this part was executed around 1635. While the still life of militaria is based on paintings of Fire by Jan I and II, a collaborator in the studio of Frans II resorted to the allegories of Water by Jan Brueghel I for the individual birds.

The present subject with its highly attractive female personifications is entirely characteristic of the oeuvre of the famous figure painter Frans Francken II – a popular theme of his that was also typical of the artist’s models Jan Brueghel I and II and which the artist subsequently revisited several times in versions rendered in the styles of both Jans. The composition as a whole is particularly rich in terms of narrative and exhibits an almost paradisiacal atmosphere.’