A Cabinet of Curiosities with Venus at the Toilet

Jan van Kessel desended from a family of artists. His maternal grandfather was Jan Brueghel the Elder. It is believed that he was trained in his father's workshop and under his uncle Jan Brueghel the Younger. In 1645 he was accepted into the painters' guild of Antwerp. His extensive oeuvre, primarily studies of nature, landscapes, genre scenes and allegories, is characterized by his efforts to capture the diversity of the world and to vividly illustrate it. This interest is also reflected in our painting by van Kessel in the form of a so-called gallery picture, an image of a real or imagined collection. The figures were probably painted by Erasmus Quellinus II in a quite usual group of artists.