(Antwerp 1580–1662)
Tobias and the Angel,
oil on copper, 28 x 40 cm, framed

We are grateful Klaus Ertz for endorsing the present painting as an autograph work by Stalbemt. He will include it in his catalogue raisonné forthcoming in 2018. The present painting is an early work by this artist by which he pays tribute to his first mentor, Adam Elsheimer (see K. Andrews, A Pseudo-Elsheimer Group: Adriaen van Stalbemt as Figure painter, in: The Burlington Magazine, CXV, 1973, pp. 301–316).

Unlike most of his Flemish colleagues, Adriaen van Stalbemt painted the figures for his landscapes himself. Known signed and dated works by Stalbemt from the period between 1604 and 1629 will serve as a basis for further research into his oeuvre.

Adriaen van Stalbemt was born in Antwerp on 12 June 1580. Because of religious reasons his family was forced to emigrate to Holland around 1585, where Stalbemt spent his youth. In 1609 he returned to Antwerp, where he became a master in 1610. In 1618 he held the office of dean of both the Violieren chamber of rhetoric and the Guild of Saint Luke. Anthony van Dyck portrayed Adriaen van Stalbemt for his “Iconographia”, a collection of portraits of leading contemporary artists, statesmen, collectors, and scholars. Although Stalbemt is documented to have spent ten months in London at the court of Charles I in 1633, Antwerp remained the centre of his interests. In terms of motif and quality, his works betray a distinct closeness to Jan Brueghel I and Hendrik van Balen, his brothers in the guild.
Unlike many other contemporary painters, Adriaen van Stalbemt worked as both a landscapist and a figure painter. Perfectly coping with both disciplines, it was not necessary for him to collaborate with other artists specialised in a particular genre. His works stand out for their felicitous harmony between landscape and figures.