(Antwerp circa 1560 – circa 1590/91)
Vigilance embracing Peace,
oil on panel, 66 x 50.5 cm, framed

The present sensual and harmonious work is characteristic of the oeuvre of Jacob de Backer who, despite his short career, was an outstanding figure among the generation of Antwerp painters that came between Frans Floris (1519/20–1570) and Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640). Noted for his innovative and scholarly allegorical compositions, here the figure of Vigilance appears with her attributes of a sword and a crane. According to popular legend, the bird would clutch a stone in its claw that would fall whenever it slept, thereby reawakening it so that it remained ever vigilant. Peace is identified by the olive wreath placed upon her head by a putto hovering above. This depiction of convivial union would have had a particular iconographic resonance in the Low Countries, then so often embroiled in civil and religious war.

The elongated bodies and the opulent colour of the draperies depicted are typical of de Backer. His landscapes are rich and florid, lending his compositions a prosperous and lush atmosphere. The mannered pose of the two allegorical figures and the positions of their legs and arms reveal both the influence of Frans Floris and the Roman Mannerists. Although textual evidence is scant regarding de Backer’s life, in Karel van Mander’s ‘Schilder-Boek’, he is praised as one of the best colourists (see H. Miedema, The Lives of the Illustrious Netherlandish and German Painters, Doornspijk 1994, I, pp. 185–186). De Backer seems to have been active mostly in Antwerp and probably travelled to Italy which would account for the fact that his work seems influenced by Giorgio Vasari and other Italian Mannerists.

The present panel relates to a group of works in which the artist paired allegorical figures, such as his Allegory of Truth and Justice (Christie’s, New York, 22 May 1998, lot 119) and Allegory of Justice and Peace (Christie’s, New York, 27 January 2000, lot 54).