(Antwerp circa 1509–1575)
A Merry Company,
oil on panel, 68 x 52 cm, framed

Provenance:
Private collection, France, until 2018

We are grateful to Peter van den Brink for suggesting the attribution of the present painting after inspection of the original.

The present painting is one of a series of compositions variously executed by Jan Massys, with or without the participation of his workshop. This raucous and joyful scene sits among three examples in public collections of the ‘Vrolijk Gezelschap’ or Merry Company as these pictures are known. Those signed works, two of which are dated 1562 (Moravska Galerie, Brno, inv. no. A399 and Musée Thomas Henry, Cherbourg, inv. no. 66) and the third 1564 (Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, inv. no. 963) may give an indication of the date of the present painting. In the present composition, the face of the central figure, that of a leering man wearing a cap with its flaps turned up, is repeated in the second figure from the left in the Vienna version. Also, the distinctive blue-green eyes of certain figures, the repetition of an ornate cap badge bearing a cameo on the musicians’ headdresses, and the fleshy visage of a female figure in the present work render it closest to the Vienna version.

Jan Massys, whose father Quentin was the first important painter of the 16th century Antwerp school and a collaborator of Joachim Patinir, was made master of the Guild of St Luke there in 1531. Jan probably took over the family workshop, and the younger Massys’s compositional mastery of half-length figures around a table shows a clear affinity with the work of his father, exemplified by Quentin’s Money Changers (Musée du Louvre, Paris). Banished in 1543 for suspected heresy, Jan appears to have imbibed the mannerism associated with the court of Francois I at Fontainebleau, painting a series of large-scale religious works that reveal both a predilection for alluring depictions of female nudes and a debt to the Flemish landscape tradition painting of Patinir. Following Jan’s return to Flanders in 1555, he appears to have worked prolifically to re-establish himself both financially and to be recognised again within the artistic and social milieu of Antwerp. His name features frequently in local inventories and he received commissions from the city council, which was significant for a returnee from exile. Much more so than in Italy, where Jan visited in the late 1540s, artists in Antwerp painted work for the open market, and it is likely that the present lot was intended for this purpose.

A Merry Company is one of several categories of satirical picture by Massys, conversation pieces that were enjoyed by the burghers of Antwerp and further afield. Other recognised categories developed by either Jan or his father include: Unequal Love, The Tax Collector, The Purchase Contract, The Prodigal Son and The Money Changers (see L. Buijnsters-Smets, Jan Massys een Antwerps schilder uit de zestiende eeuw, Zwolle, 1995).