(Cambrai circa 1580–1621 Antwerp)
Queen Semiramis hunting a Lion at the Gates of Babylon (Herodot, Histories I, 184),
dated centre left (above gateway): 1610,
oil on panel, 50 x 66 cm, framed

Provenance:
Private collection, Berlin;
sale, Internationales Kunst- und Auktionshaus, Berlin, 2 December 1931, lot 857 (as Tobias Verhaecht);
sale, M. Georges Blache, Hôtel Rameau, Versailles, 12 June 1969, lot 166 (as Tobias Verhaecht);
Private collection, Madrid;
art market, Spain;
where acquired by the present owner

We are grateful to Ursula Härting for confirming the attribution of the present canvas to Louis de Caullery and workshop on the basis of a photograph. A copy of her certificate, dated 11 October 2021, is available.

The present mythological scene is a dramatic example of the oeuvre of Louis de Caullery and his accomplished workshop. A pupil of mannerist landscape painter Joos de Momper, de Caullery depicts here Queen Semiramis hunting a lion outside the gates of Babylon. The elongated figures are redolent of the School of Fontainebleau, while the richly detailed and fantastical cityscape derives from supposedly antique models, as imagined by Maarten van Heemskerck in his Eight Wonders of the Ancient World, a print series engraved by Philips Galle. Härting further states that the central iconography of the indefatigable monarch spearing the lion originates from a print of 1614 by Crispijn van der Passe after Maarten de Vos.

Likely born in the village of Caullery, near Cambrai, de Caullery was one of the most gifted of de Momper’s pupils, becoming a master of the Antwerp Guild of St. Luke in 1602. He was a highly versatile artist, painting everything from palatial interiors and courtly scenes, to fireworks, bullfights and carnivals on ice. He was particularly remarkable for his innovative colouring, unusual in Flanders at that time, making much use of half tones and mixing artfully ochre yellow, Burgundian red and Veronese green. As is evident in the present picture, his mastery of perspective and fine architectural detailing was almost without parallel among his contemporaries.